Eukaryotic DNA is tightly packaged within cell nuclei into chromatin. The fundamental building block of chromatin is the nucleosome core particle that contains ~147 bp of DNA wrapped around an octameric complex made up of two copies each of the four core histones (H3, H4, H2A, H2B). Histone proteins harbor a plethora of Post-translational Modifications (PTMs). These covalent substitutions induce alterations in chromatin structure, both directly by affecting the physical chemistry of the system and indirectly by recruiting chromatin-remodeling activities1,2,3. By those means, histone PTMs control chromatin accessibility and, hence, regulate all DNA-based cellular functions4.
PTMs are installed by histone-modifying enzyme systems mainly on the unstructured N-terminal segments (tails) of nucleosome-incorporated core histones. Due to the many modification sites on the relatively short sequence of histone tails, PTMs influence each other by inducing or blocking subsequent modification reactions, an effect known as modification cross-talk5. Because of the overall symmetric architecture of the nucleosome, modification reactions and crosstalk mechanisms were thought to occur similarly onto the two copies of each nucleosomal histone (sister histones). This concept was recently challenged and subsequently disproved. Particularly, in vitro enzymatic assays on free histone H3 tail peptides and on nucleosomes demonstrated that a set of H3 kinases introduced phosphorylation in an asymmetric manner6. Additionally, affinity-purification-based LC-MS/MS analysis revealed the existence of asymmetrically H3-methylated nucleosomes in several types of eukaryotic cells7. Thus, asymmetrically modified nucleosomes constitute novel species, and tools are needed to uncover the mechanisms that control their formation and to analyze the crosstalk effects that this asymmetry might exert.
Commonly, Western Blotting (WB) and Mass Spectrometry (MS) analysis have been used to detect histone PTMs. Despite its easy application, WB suffers from specificity/cross-reactivity problems. On top of that, it is incapable of performing simultaneous multi-PTM analysis and direct quantification of the modification reactions8. On the other hand, MS analysis employs sophisticated instrumentation that requires high-level training, but provides high specificity as well as simultaneous mapping and quantification of multiple PTMs9. However, both methods are disruptive and the nucleosomal complexes are dissociated before analysis, giving rise to a mixture of histones and/or histone-derived peptides. This manipulation removes the ability to distinguish independent modification reactions that occur on each of the two sister histones and to report the copy-specific modification status of the nucleosomal histones.
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy evolved as an alternative method to map PTM reactions. NMR is nondisruptive and thus allows the monitoring of PTM events in a real-time manner in reconstituted mixtures, and even in intact cells10,11. The development of routines for fast data acquisition as well as for high-resolution mapping based on 2D hetero-nuclear correlation methods of isotope-labeled (15N and/or 13C) samples12 allowed the simultaneous mapping of different types of PTMs, such as serine/threonine/tyrosine phosphorylation, lysine acetylation/methylation, and arginine methylation13. Depending on the PTM under investigation, 15N- or 13C-labeling protocols can be employed to mark the protein functional group that serves as a modification reporter. Consequently, PTM mapping can be performed by following the characteristic chemical shift displacement of the corresponding functional group 'sensing' the alteration on the chemical environment. In most cases, both N-H and C-H chemical groups can be used to report the evolution of the PTM of interest.
The current protocol describes the generation of nucleosomes containing differentially isotope-labeled sister histones. It combines the flexibility of NMR spectroscopy to map PTMs using both 1H-15N and 1H-13C correlation spectra with the utilization of different protein affinity tags for purification of the selected reconstituted histone complexes. Notably, the protocol employs two different pools of a particular histone for nucleosome reconstitution. These pools are differentially isotope-labeled (one with 15N, the other with 13C), and they are fused to a polyhistidine and a streptavidin affinity tag, respectively. A tandem affinity purification scheme with Ni-NTA and streptavidin-based chromatography initially used by Voigt et al.7 is employed to purify asymmetric species from symmetric counterparts (Figure 1A). Asymmetric histone octamers are used subsequently to reconstitute equivalent nucleosomal complexes (Figure 1B), using the standard salt dialysis method14. Additionally, through the same procedure and by having one of the histone pools pre-modified, a PTM can be incorporated asymmetrically onto the resulting nucleosomes. The reaction of these substrates with histone-modifying enzymes and subsequent NMR-mapping of modification events enable the characterization of crosstalk mechanisms both in-cis (premodified histone copy) and in-trans (unmodified histone copy) (Figure 1C).