The human genome is highly organized in the three-dimensional nucleus. Chromosomes fold locally into topologically associating domains (TADs) defined by increased intra-domain chromatin contacts. TADs contribute to gene regulation by restricting chromatin interactions of regulatory sequences, such as enhancers, with their target genes. Disruption of TADs can result in altered gene expression and is associated to genetic diseases and cancers. However, it is not clear to which extent TAD regions are conserved in evolution and whether disruption of TADs by evolutionary rearrangements can alter gene expression. Here, we hypothesize that TADs represent essential functional units of genomes, which are stable against rearrangements during evolution. We investigate this using whole-genome alignments to identify evolutionary rearrangement breakpoints of different vertebrate species. Rearrangement breakpoints are strongly enriched at TAD boundaries and depleted within TADs across species. Furthermore, using gene expression data across many tissues in mouse and human, we show that genes within TADs have more conserved expression patterns. Disruption of TADs by evolutionary rearrangements is associated with changes in gene expression profiles, consistent with a functional role of TADs in gene expression regulation. Together, these results indicate that TADs are conserved building blocks of genomes with regulatory functions that are often reshuffled as a whole instead of being disrupted by rearrangements.

Background: Recent data from genome-wide chromosome conformation capture analysis indicate that the human genome is divided into conserved megabase-sized self-interacting regions called topological domains. These topological domains form the regulatory backbone of the genome and are separated by regulatory boundary elements or barriers. Copy-number variations can potentially alter the topological domain architecture by deleting or duplicating the barriers and thereby allowing enhancers from neighboring domains to ectopically activate genes causing misexpression and disease, a mutational mechanism that has recently been termed enhancer adoption. Results: We use the Human Phenotype Ontology database to relate the phenotypes of 922 deletion cases recorded in the DECIPHER database to monogenic diseases associated with genes in or adjacent to the deletions. We identify combinations of tissue-specific enhancers and genes adjacent to the deletion and associated with phenotypes in the corresponding tissue, whereby the phenotype matched that observed in the deletion. We compare this computationally with a gene-dosage pathomechanism that attempts to explain the deletion phenotype based on haploinsufficiency of genes located within the deletions. Up to 11.8% of the deletions could be best explained by enhancer adoption or a combination of enhancer adoption and gene-dosage effects. Conclusions: Our results suggest that enhancer adoption caused by deletions of regulatory boundaries may contribute to a substantial minority of copy-number variation phenotypes and should thus be taken into account in their medical interpretation.

The classical DNA recognition sequence of the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) appears to be present at only a fraction of bound genomic regions. To identify sequences responsible for recruitment of this transcription factor (TF) to individual loci, we turned to the high-resolution ChIP-exo approach. We exploited this signal by determining footprint profiles of TF binding at single-base-pair resolution using ExoProfiler, a computational pipeline based on DNA binding motifs. When applied to our GR and the few available public ChIP-exo data sets, we find that ChIP-exo footprints are protein- and recognition sequence-specific signatures of genomic TF association. Furthermore, we show that ChIP-exo captures information about TFs other than the one directly targeted by the antibody in the ChIP procedure. Consequently, the shape of the ChIP-exo footprint can be used to discriminate between direct and indirect (tethering to other DNA-bound proteins) DNA association of GR. Together, our findings indicate that the absence of classical recognition sequences can be explained by direct GR binding to a broader spectrum of sequences than previously known, either as a homodimer or as a heterodimer binding together with a member of the ETS or TEAD families of TFs, or alternatively by indirect recruitment via FOX or STAT proteins. ChIP-exo footprints also bring structural insights and locate DNA:protein cross-link points that are compatible with crystal structures of the studied TFs. Overall, our generically applicable footprint-based approach uncovers new structural and functional insights into the diverse ways of genomic cooperation and association of TFs.

Paralog genes arise from gene duplication events during evolution, which often lead to similar proteins that cooperate in common pathways and in protein complexes. Consequently, paralogs show correlation in gene expression whereby the mechanisms of co-regulation remain unclear. In eukaryotes, genes are regulated in part by distal enhancer elements through looping interactions with gene promoters. These looping interactions can be measured by genome-wide chromatin conformation capture (Hi-C) experiments, which revealed self-interacting regions called topologically associating domains (TADs). We hypothesize that paralogs share common regulatory mechanisms to enable coordinated expression according to TADs. To test this hypothesis, we integrated paralogy annotations with human gene expression data in diverse tissues, genome-wide enhancer–promoter associations and Hi-C experiments in human, mouse and dog genomes. We show that paralog gene pairs are enriched for co-localization in the same TAD, share more often common enhancer elements than expected and have increased contact frequencies over large genomic distances. Combined, our results indicate that paralogs share common regulatory mechanisms and cluster not only in the linear genome but also in the three-dimensional chromatin architecture. This enables concerted expression of paralogs over diverse cell-types and indicate evolutionary constraints in functional genome organization.