Retroelements are genomic parasites which make up ~42% of the human genome and 38% of the mouse genome. Most are degenerate, but a large number have relatively intact promoter elements, suggesting that they are capable of transcription. Transcriptionally active retroelements can perturb normal transcription units in their vicinity through a variety of mechanisms, leading to phenotypic effects and in some cases disease. This phenomenon of transcriptional interference has been observed in organisms as diverse as maize, Drosophila, and the mouse. We analysed the extent of retroelement transcription in normal and diseased tissues, by searching the mouse and human EST databases for transcripts originating in retroelement promoters, and found a large number of transcripts from LINEs, SINEs and ERVs. Retroelement transcripts were found to be initiated in both sense and antisense orientations, and to be equally as common in normal and diseased tissue. Several of these transcripts were chimeric, appearing to initiate in retroelements and reading through to cellular genes, suggestive of transcriptional interference. We have used transposon display to identify and recover retroelement transcripts in the mouse. Transcripts initiated in LINE, SINE and ERV promoters are numerous, and many are chimeric with cellular genes. Although the numbers of recovered chimeric transcripts are too large to permit rigorous analysis of more than a small proportion, some of those we have studied further appear to be authentic transcripts that may represent interference with the canonical promoters of the genes in question. Our results suggest that transcriptional interference by retroelements may be a relatively common occurrence in mammals.

Les éléments LINE-1 (L1) sont une classe abondante de rétrotransposons représentant 17% du génome humain. La région 5’UTR des sous-familles les plus récentes (L1PA1 à 6) contient un promoteur bidirectionnel contenant non seulement un promoteur sens interne mais aussi un promoteur antisens, nommé ASP. Dans les cellules normales, l’un des mécanismes impliqués dans la régulation du promoteur de L1 est la méthylation ADN. Dans les tumeurs, une hypométhylation globale affectant notamment les L1 est observée. Il a été mis en évidence que cette hypométhylation pouvait induire la transcription, à partir de l’ASP, de transcrits chimères ou LCT (L1 Chimeric Transcript). Ces LCT sont composés en 5’ de la séquence L1 et se poursuivent dans la région génomique adjacente. Afin d’étudier l’impact pangénomique de cette dérégulation et son implication dans les processus tumoraux, un outil bio-informatique dédié, nommé CLIFinder, a été développé pour identifier dans des données de RNA-seq paired-end orientés des LCT putatifs. Les RNA-seq de 13 gliomes, qui sont les cancers du cerveau les plus fréquents chez l’adulte, et de 3 tissus cérébraux contrôles ont été étudiés. CLIFinder identifie 2675 chimères dans les gliomes dont 84% impliquent des L1 récents (PA1 à 7) pleine taille supposés posséder un ASP fonctionnel et 50% sont détectées spécifiquement dans les échantillons tumoraux. 78 chimères correspondent à des LCT déjà décrits dans la littérature. De même, l’étude de RNA-seq d’autres types tumoraux (lignée MCF7 et métastases ovariennes) par CLIFinder identifie des chimères en commun suggérant une récurrence de certaines d’entre elles. L’étude d’un groupe de chimères par marche en 5’ par RT-PCR valide que 89% (56/63) des chimères impliquant des L1 récents (L1PA1 à PA7) sont initiées dans la région de l’ASP et correspondent à des LCT alors que toutes les chimères testées impliquant des L1PA8 sont initiées en amont de cette région. Des études de RT-qPCR sur une cohorte plus large de 51 gliomes montrent que les 56 LCT testés, incluant des LCT spécifiques de tumeurs, sont exprimés non seulement dans les tumeurs mais aussi dans les contrôles. Par contre, 70% des LCT spécifiques de tumeurs, montrent alors une surexpression tumorale significative. Ces résultats suggèrent donc une transcription basale provenant de l’ASP dans les tissus normaux et que la dérégulation transcriptionnelle liées aux LCT dans les gliomes passe par une surexpression. Par ailleurs, afin de déterminer le ou les mécanismes sous-jacents impliqués dans l’augmentation de l’activité transcriptionnelle de l’ASP, deux hypothèses ont été testées. La première implique l’hypométhylation du promoteur de L1. Toutefois mes résultats tendent à réfuter cette hypothèse puisqu’aucune diminution de la méthylation ADN n’est retrouvée au niveau de la région promotrice des L1 impliqués dans la transcription de LCT surexprimés. Par contre, les gènes associés à des LCT dont l’expression est dérégulée en contexte tumoral présentent une dérégulation dans le même sens que celle du LCT. De plus, les variations d’expression de gènes corrèlent systématiquement avec celle des LCT correspondants. Ceci suggère qu’une augmentation d’activité transcriptionnelle aux loci des LCT serait responsable de la surexpression de ceux-ci. Enfin 2 LCT candidats surexprimés et ayant un potentiel de biomarqueur prédictif de la survie des patients, pourraient jouer un rôle fonctionnel dans l’initiation, la progression et/ou l’agressivité tumorale. En conclusion, mes travaux ont validé que CLIFinder se positionne comme un outil pertinent permettant d’identifier, de façon pangénomique, les LCT exprimés dans différents types tumoraux à partir de données de RNA-seq paired-end orientées. L’observation d’une récurrence ainsi que d’une surexpression tumorale de certains LCT suggère qu’ils pourraient jouer un rôle fonctionnel dans les processus de tumorigenèse. / LINE-1 (L1) is the most abundant class of retrotransposons which represents 17% of the human genome. The 5’ region of the youngest L1 sub-families (L1PA1 to 6) contains a bidirectional promoter consisting, in addition to the internal sense promoter, of an antisense promoter, called ASP. In normal cells, the main defense mechanism, developed to counteract the deleterious effect of L1 activity, consists in L1 promoter DNA methylation. A hallmark of cancer genomes consists in a global DNA hypomethylation which affects especially L1 promoters. In tumors, evidences suggest that this hypomethylation could result in transcription from ASP of aberrant L1-Chimeric Transcripts (LCTs) composed of L1 5’end and its adjacent sequence. To investigate the pangenomic extent of this transcriptional deregulation and its impact in tumoral processes, a dedicated bioinformatic tool, CLIFinder, was designed to select putative LCTs among RNA-seq oriented paired-end reads. RNA-seq analyses of 13 gliomas, which are the most common brain cancer in adults, and 3 control brains were performed.CLIFinder identifies 2675 chimeras in gliomas, among which 84% involves recent L1 (PA1 to 7) full size, supposed to possess a functional ASP, and 50% are detected specifically in tumors samples. 78 chimeras correspond to LCT already described in literature. In addition, study of additional RNA-seq data from other tumor types (MCF7 and ovarian metastasis) by CLIFinder identifies common chimeras suggesting that some of them can be recurrent. The analysis of a group of chimeras by 5’ walk RT-PCR validate that 89% (56/63) of chimeras implying recent L1 (L1PA1 to 7) are initiated at the ASP region and therefore correspond to LCT; whereas all tested chimeras implying an L1PA8 element are transcribed from an upstream region. RT-qPCR studies on a larger cohort of 51 gliomas show that all 56 tested LCT, even identified by CLIFinder as “tumor specific”, are not only expressed in tumors but also in controls. Nevertheless, 70% of the “tumor specific” LCTs are significantly overexpressed in tumors. My results suggest that, even L1 5’ UTR methylation, some ASP are active in normal tissues and lead to a basal LCT expression in normal tissues. Moreover, a transcriptional deregulation linked to LCTs in tumors exists and implies a LCTs’ overexpression.In order to determine the underlying mechanisms involved in the increase of transcriptional activity of ASP, two hypothesis were tested. The first one implies L1 promoter hypomethylation. My results tend to refute this hypothesis because no decrease of the DNA methylation is found at the promoter region of L1 linked to overexpressed LCTs. On the other hand, the genes associated to LCT presenting an expression deregulation in tumors demonstrate a deregulation in the same way. Moreover, gene expression variations correlates systematically with the one corresponding LCTs. This suggests that an increase of transcriptional activity at the LCTs loci would be responsible of their overexpression. Finally, 2 candidate LCT overexpressed and presenting as potential predictive biomarkers for patient’s survival, could play a functional role in initiation, progression and/or the tumoral aggressiveness.In conclusion, my work has validated CLIFinder as a useful tool to identify, at pangenomic level, LCTs expressed in different tumor types from paired-end stranded RNA-seq data. The observation of the recurrence and tumoral overexpression for some LCTs suggests that they may play a functional role in tumoral processes.

Orientador: Michel Eduardo Beleza Yamagishi / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Biologia / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-15T17:21:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Herai_RobertoHirochi_D.pdf: 3625854 bytes, checksum: 3f19d10a9b0bb7f77091197cd302f66e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010 / Resumo: A grande quantidade de dados biológicos gerados recentemente permitiu verificar que os genomas são repletos de seqüências repetitivas (SR), como microsatélites e elementos genéticos móveis, altamente improváveis de ocorrer estatisticamente se os genomas fossem gerados a partir de uma distribuição aleatória de nucleotídeos. Tal comprovação motivou a classificação de tais seqüências e também a construção de diversas ferramentas de bioinformática, além de mecanismos de armazenamento baseados em sistemas de gerenciamento de bancos de dados (SGBD) para permitir localizá-las e armazená-las para posterior estudo. Entretanto, foi com a comprovação biológica da importância das SR, como no mecanismo de interferência por RNAi (SR reversa complementar), que as SR despertaram maior interesse por parte da comunidade científica. Atualmente, já há fortes evidências que associam as SR com fenômenos biológicos bastante interessantes, como o processamento de RNA por cis-splicing e a formação de transcritos quiméricos, freqüentes em organismos inferiores e muito raro em organismos superiores. Tais tipos de transcritos podem ser gerados a partir de trans-splicing ou, como conjecturamos nesse trabalho, pela transposição de elementos genéticos móveis (como por exemplo transposons ou retrotransposons). Em virtude disso, este projeto propõe a construção de metodologias de Bioinformática, disponibilizadas na WEB, para detectar transcritos quiméricos em genomas de organismos, tanto em versões draft ou em alta qualidade, e também estudar as SR que ocorrem no locus gênico dos transcritos envolvidos na formação de uma seqüência quimérica. As ferramentas propostas permitiram identificar, a partir de bibliotecas de transcritos de full-length cDNA, tanto de humanos quanto de bovinos, novos transcritos quiméricos provenientes de células de tecidos normais, e que não seguem splice-sites canônicos na região de fusão dos transcritos envolvidos. Além disso, as seqüências encontradas apresentam uma elevada taxa de concentração de pares de SR do tipo reverso complementar no locus gênico dos dois transcritos que formam a seqüência quimérica. As ferramentas propostas podem ser utilizadas para outros organismos e direcionar trabalhos experimentais para tentar comprovar em bancada novos transcritos quiméricos, tanto em organismos inferiores quanto em superiores / Abstract: The recent availability of a huge amount of biological data allowed to know about the high concentration of repetitive sequences (SR) like microsatellites and genetic mobile elements in different genomes. Repetitive sequences are improbable to occur statistically if genome data were generated by a random distribution of nucleotides. Such observation motivated the classification of repetitive sequences, and the construction of several bioinformatics tools. Furthermore, several mechanisms to store repetitive sequences, which are based on data base management systems (DBMS) were proposed and created. They can be used to search for specific sequences to make a posteriori study. However, it was with the biological confirmation of the importance of repetitive sequences, like by the RNA interference (reverse complement, or inverted repeat) mechanism, that the scientific community gained more interest by such sequences. Actually, there is strong evidence that associates the repetitive sequences with some interesting biological phenomena, like in RNA processing by cis-splicing, and in chimeric transcript formation mechanism. This last one is very frequently in inferior organism, but rare in superior organisms. Such types of transcripts can be generated by trans-splicing, or like conjectured in this work, by the retrotransposition of mobile genetic elements (like transposons or retrotransposons). In this way, this work proposed the construction of several Bioinformatics methodologies, available in the WEB, to detect new evidences of chimeric transcripts in genomes of different organisms, both in draft genome and in high quality genome assemblage. We also studied repetitive sequences in gene loci of the involved transcripts in a chimeric sequence formation. The proposed tools allowed us to identify, using a full-length cDNA databank, new chimeric transcript candidates in human and in bovine genome. They are from cells of normal tissues, and do not follow canonical splice-sites in the fusion region of the involved transcripts. Moreover, it was possible to show that the detected sequences have high concentration pairs of reverse complement type of repetitive sequences in gene loci of the two involved transcripts, which originated a new chimeric transcript candidate. The created bioinformatics tools can be used in other organisms in addition to the one used in this work, leading to the proposition of new experimental work to try to prove in vivo new chimeric transcripts, both in superior organism and in inferior organism / Doutorado / Bioinformatica / Doutor em Genetica e Biologia Molecular

Les rétrotransposons sont des éléments génétiques mobiles qui constituent presque la moitié de notre génome. Seule la sous-famille L1HS appartenant à la classe des Long Interspersed Element-1(LINE-1 ou L1) a gardé une capacité de mobilité autonome chez l’Homme. Leur mobilisation dans la lignée germinale, mais Aussi dans certains tissus somatiques, contribue à la diversité du génome humain ainsi qu’à certaines maladies comme le cancer. Ainsi, de nouvelles copies de L1 peuvent directement s'intégrer dans des séquences codantes ou régulatrices, et altérer leur fonction. De plus, les séquences L1 contiennent elles-mêmes plusieurs éléments cis-régulateurs et leur insertion à proximité ou dans un gène peut produire des altérations génétiques plus subtiles. Afin d'explorer l'ensemble de ces altérations à l'échelle du génome, nous avons développé un logiciel dédié à l’analyse des données de séquençage d'ARN qui permet d'identifier des transcrits chimériques ou antisens impliquant les L1 et d'annoter ces isoformes en fonction des différents événements d’épissage alternatif subits. Au cours de ce travail, il est apparu que la compréhension du lien entre polymorphisme des insertions et phénotype nécessite une vue complète des différentes copies L1HS présentes chez un individu donné. Afin de disposer d'un catalogue aussi complet que possible de ces polymorphismes identifiés dans des échantillons humains sains ou pathologiques et publiés dans des journaux scientifiques, nous avons développé euL1db, la base de données des insertions de rétrotransposon L1HS chez l’Homme. En conclusion, ce travail aidera à comprendre l’impact des L1 sur l’expression des gènes, à l'échelle du génome. / Retrotransposons are mobile genetics elements, which form almost half of our genome. Only the L1HS subfamily of the Long Interspersed Element-1 class (LINE-1 or L1) has retained the ability to jump autonomously in humans. Their mobilization in the germline – but also in some somatic tissues – contributes to human genetic diversity and to diseases, such as cancer. L1 reactivation can be directly mutagenic by disrupting genes or regulatory sequences. In addition, L1 sequences themselves contain many regulatory cis-elements. Thus, L1 insertions near a gene or within intronic sequences can also produce more subtle genic alterations. To explore L1-mediated genic alterations in a genome-wide manner, we have developed a dedicated RNA-seq analysis software able to identify L1 chimeric or antisense transcripts and to annotate these novel isoforms with their associated alternative splicing events. During the course of this work, it appeared that understanding the link between L1HS insertion polymorphisms and phenotype or disease requires a comprehensive view of the different L1HS copies present in a given individual or sample. To provide a comprehensive summary of L1HS insertion polymorphisms identified in healthy or pathological human samples and published in peer-reviewed journals, we developed euL1db, the European database of L1HS retrotransposon insertions in humans. This work will help understanding the overall impact of L1 insertions on gene expression, at a genome-wide scale.