Simple molecular networks that respond optimally to time-periodic stimulation

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Bacteria or cells receive many signals from their environment and from other organisms. In order to process this large amount of information, Systems Biology shows that a central role is played by regulatory networks composed of genes and proteins. The objective of this paper is to present and to discuss simple regulatory network motifs having the property to maximize their responses under time-periodic stimulations. In elucidating the mechanisms underlying these responses through simple networks the goal is to pinpoint general principles which optimize the oscillatory responses of molecular networks.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We took a look at basic network motifs studied in the literature such as the Incoherent Feedforward Loop (IFFL) or the interlerlocked negative feedback loop. The former is also generalized to a diamond pattern, with network components being either purely genetic or combining genetic and signaling pathways. Using standard mathematics and numerical simulations, we explain the types of responses exhibited by the IFFL with respect to a train of periodic pulses. We show that this system has a non-vanishing response only if the inter-pulse interval is above a threshold. A slight generalisation of the IFFL (the diamond) is shown to work as an ideal pass-band filter. We next show a mechanism by which average of oscillatory response can be maximized by bursting temporal patterns. Finally we study the interlerlocked negative feedback loop, i.e. a 2-gene motif forming a loop where the nodes respectively activate and repress each other, and show situations where this system possesses a resonance under periodic stimulation.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We present several simple motif designs of molecular networks producing optimal output in response to periodic stimulations of the system. The identified mechanisms are simple and based on known network motifs in the literature, so that that they could be embodied in existing organisms, or easily implementable by means of synthetic biology. Moreover we show that these designs can be studied in different contexts of molecular biology, as for example in genetic networks or in signaling pathways.</p

Aspects temporel et spatial dans des systèmes de régulation génétique

This thesis deals with several aspects concerning genetic regulation on theoretical and experimental points of view. A first work in the field of modelisation of biological systems, proposes to find simple regulatory networks which have the ability to optimise their response when they are submitted to a periodic stimulation. The network called ``Incoherent Feed Forward Loop'' appeared to have the interesting property to let pass trains of pulses which have a particular temporal pattern. Some extensions of this motif (``Diamond'', ``Double Diamond''...) are proposed to also have interesting properties to process more complex time-dependent signals. Next, a work of review and observation concerning DNA looping is presented. After pointing out some common points in systems of DNA looping already known, we have examined the data bases to see if other regulatory regions have the same characteristics. We propose a list of several genes which might be good candidates to be regulated thanks to a DNA looping mechanism. An experimental work of molecular biology is then presented. It tackles a hypothesis found in several works from bioinformatics and statistical physics. The question is the following: can transcription factors bind to binding sites belonging not to a unique regulatory region of one gene (like in the lac operon) but to binding sites belonging to different genes? We tested this hypothesis on the Pel regulatory system which rules the entry into virulence of the enterobacteria Erwinia chrysanthemi. Experiments reproduced and carried out in various physiological conditions lead to the conclusion that the deleted regulatory regions do not seem to act on other genes by a DNA looping mechanism. The last chapter proposes an experimental method to search for such interactions in a broader way inside a bacterial genome. The method is based on molecular biology techniques commonly used, like the random mutagenesis or alpha-complementation. It uses the enhancer system of the promoter of glnA of Escherichia coli and aims at finding significant 3D interactions between DNA segments in a prokaryote genome.Cette thèse s'intéresse à plusieurs aspects concernant la régulation génétique sur les plans théorique et expérimental. Un premier travail théorique qui s'inscrit dans le cadre de la modélisation des systèmes biologiques se propose de trouver des réseaux de régulation simples qui puissent répondre de manière optimale lorsqu'ils sont soumis à une stimulation périodique. Le réseau appelé ``Incoherent Feed Forward Loop'' s'est avéré présenter la propriété intéressante de laisser passer des trains de pulses au profil temporel particulier. Des extensions de ce motif (``Diamond'', ``Double Diamond''...) ont été suggérées pouvant également présenter des propriétés intéressantes pour traiter des signaux plus complexes. Un travail de revue et d'observations concernant les boucles d'ADN est ensuite présenté. Après avoir observé des points communs dans les systèmes de boucle d'ADN déjà connus, nous avons interrogé les bases de données pour savoir quelles étaient les régions de régulation présentant les mêmes caractéristiques. Nous proposons une liste de plusieurs opérons qui mériteraient une démarche expérimentale pour la mise en évidence d'une boucle d'ADN. Un travail expérimental de biologie moléculaire est ensuite présenté. Il s'est attaqué à tester une hypothèse présente dans plusieurs travaux de bioinformatique ou de physique statistique. La question testée est la suivante: est-ce que des facteurs de transcription pourraient se lier à des sites de liaison appartenant non pas à la même région de régulation d'un gène (comme dans le cas de l'opéron lac) mais à des sites de liaison appartenant à des gènes différents? Nous avons testé cette hypothèse sur le système de régulation d'entrée en virulence de la bactérie Erwinia chrysanthemi. Les expériences reproduites et réalisées dans plusieurs conditions physiologiques différentes ont abouti à la conclusion que les régions de régulation supprimées ne semblent pas agir sur d'autres gènes par le mécanisme de boucle d'ADN. Le dernier chapitre propose une méthode expérimentale pour rechercher de telles interactions de façon large dans un génome de bactérie. La méthode est basée sur des techniques de biologie moléculaire couramment utilisées comme la mutagénèse aléatoire ou l'alpha-complémentation. Elle utilise le système enhancer du promoteur de glnA d'Escherichia coli et vise à trouver des interactions 3D significatives entre segments d'ADN au sein d'un génome de procaryote

The 3D folding of metazoan genomes correlates with the association of similar repetitive elements

International audienceThe potential roles of the numerous repetitive elements found in the genomes of multi-cellular organisms remain speculative. Several studies have suggested a role in stabilizing specific 3D genomic contacts. To test this hypothesis, we exploited inter-chromosomal contacts frequencies obtained from Hi-C experiments and show that the folding of the human, mouse and Drosophila genomes is associated with a significant co-localization of several specific repetitive elements, notably many elements of the SINE family. These repeats tend to be the oldest ones and are enriched in transcription factor binding sites. We propose that the co-localization of these repetitive elements may explain the global conservation of genome folding observed between homol-ogous regions of the human and mouse genome. Taken together, these results support a contribution of specific repetitive elements in maintaining and/or reshaping genome architecture over evolutionary times

Scaffolding bacterial genomes and probing host-virus interactions in gut microbiome by proximity ligation (chromosome capture) assay

International audienceThe biochemical activities of microbial communities, or microbiomes, are essential parts of environmental and animal ecosystems. The dynamics, balance, and effects of these communities are strongly influenced by phages present in the population. Being able to characterize bacterium-phage relationships is therefore essential to investigate these ecosystems to the full extent of their complexity. However, this task is currently limited by (i) the ability to characterize complete bacterial and viral genomes from a complex mix of species and (ii) the difficulty to assign phage sequences to their bacterial hosts. We show that both limitations can be circumvented using meta3C, an experimental and computational approach that exploits the physical contacts between DNA molecules to infer their proximity. In a single experiment, dozens of bacterial and phage genomes present in a complex mouse gut microbiota were assembled and scaffolded de novo. The phage genomes were then assigned to their putative bacterial hosts according to the physical contacts between the different DNA molecules, opening new perspectives for a comprehensive picture of the genomic structure of the gut flora. Therefore, this work holds far-reaching implications for human health studies aiming to bridge the virome to the microbiome

Generation and Analysis of Chromosomal Contact Maps of Yeast Species.

International audienceGenome-wide derivatives of the chromosome conformation capture (3C) technique are now well-established approaches to study the multiscale average organization of chromosomes from bacteria to mammals. However, the experimental parameters of the protocol have to be optimized for different species, and the downstream experimental products (i.e., pair-end sequences) are influenced by these parameters. Here, we describe a complete pipeline to generate 3C-seq libraries and compute chromosomal contact maps of yeast species

Crosstalk between Hepatitis B Virus and the 3D Genome Structure

International audienceViruses that transcribe their DNA within the nucleus have to adapt to the existing cellular mechanisms that govern transcriptional regulation. Recent technological breakthroughs have highlighted the highly hierarchical organization of the cellular genome and its role in the regulation of gene expression. This review provides an updated overview on the current knowledge on how the hepatitis B virus interacts with the cellular 3D genome and its consequences on viral and cellular gene expression. We also briefly discuss the strategies developed by other DNA viruses to co-opt and sometimes subvert cellular genome spatial organization

Normalization of a chromosomal contact map

International audienceBackgroundChromatin organization has been increasingly studied in relation with its important influence on DNA-related metabolic processes such as replication or regulation of gene expression. Since its original design ten years ago, capture of chromosome conformation (3C) has become an essential tool to investigate the overall conformation of chromosomes. It relies on the capture of long-range trans and cis interactions of chromosomal segments whose relative proportions in the final bank reflect their frequencies of interactions, hence their spatial proximity in a population of cells. The recent coupling of 3C with deep sequencing approaches now allows the generation of high resolution genome-wide chromosomal contact maps. Different protocols have been used to generate such maps in various organisms. This includes mammals, drosophila and yeast. The massive amount of raw data generated by the genomic 3C has to be carefully processed to alleviate the various biases and byproducts generated by the experiments. Our study aims at proposing a simple normalization procedure to minimize the influence of these unwanted but inevitable events on the final results.ResultsCareful analysis of the raw data generated previously for budding yeast S. cerevisiae led to the identification of three main biases affecting the final datasets, including a previously unknown bias resulting from the circularization of DNA molecules. We then developed a simple normalization procedure to process the data and allow the generation of a normalized, highly contrasted, chromosomal contact map for S. cerevisiae. The same method was then extended to the first human genome contact map. Using the normalized data, we revisited the preferential interactions originally described between subsets of discrete chromosomal features. Notably, the detection of preferential interactions between tRNA in yeast and CTCF, PolII binding sites in human can vary with the normalization procedure used.ConclusionsWe quantitatively reanalyzed the genomic 3C data obtained for S. cerevisiae, identified some of the biases inherent to the technique and proposed a simple normalization procedure to analyse them. Such an approach can be easily generalized for genomic 3C experiments in other organisms. More experiments and analysis will be necessary to reach optimal resolution and accuracies of the maps generated through these approaches. Working with cell population presenting highest levels of homogeneity will prove useful in this regards

Normalization of Chromosome Contact Maps: Matrix Balancing and Visualization

International audienceOver the last decade, genomic proximity ligation approaches have reshaped our vision of chromosomes 3D organizations, from bacteria nucleoids to larger eukaryotic genomes. The different protocols (3Cseq, Hi-C, TCC, MicroC [XL], Hi-CO, etc.) rely on common steps (chemical fixation digestion, ligation…) to detect pairs of genomic positions in close proximity. The most common way to represent these data is a matrix, or contact map, which allows visualizing the different chromatin structures (compartments, loops, etc.) that can be associated to other signals such as transcription, protein occupancy, etc. as well as, in some instances, to biological functions.In this chapter we present and discuss the filtering of the events recovered in proximity ligation experiments as well as the application of the balancing normalization procedure on the resulting contact map. We also describe a computational tool for visualizing normalized contact data dubbed Scalogram.The different processes described here are illustrated and supported by the laboratory custom-made scripts pooled into "hicstuff," an open-access python package accessible on github ( https://github.com/koszullab/hicstuff )