Sequential Salt Extractions for the Analysis of Bulk Chromatin Binding Properties of Chromatin Modifying Complexes

The overall goal of the Sequential Salt Extraction procedure is to characterize protein binding profiles to bulk chromatin and to valuate how the binding is altered when the protein, or its environment, is manipulated. This method measures the relative affinity of epigenetic regulators to chromatin, and can be used to evaluate how those interactions change upon genetic, chemical, and environmental manipulation. The main advantage of this technique is that it is a quick and inexpensive way to evaluate the binding profiles of chromatin-binding proteins.

Individuals new to the chromatin field often struggle with chromatin immunoprecipitation, or ChIP. Sequential Salt Extraction is an old technique that even inexperienced scientists can use to answer many of the same questions. To begin the procedure, harvest 8, 000, 000 cells from each cell line of interest.

Wash each cell sample with five milliliters of ice cold PBS twice. Resuspend each sample and one milliliter of a hypotonic buffer with protease inhibitors. Transfer the cell suspensions to 1.5 milliliter microcentrifuge tubes.

Rotate the suspensions, top over bottom, for 10 minutes at four-degree Celsius, and then centrifuge the suspension for five minutes at this same temperature at 6, 000 G’s. Discard the supernatant. Equip a micro pipette with a one milliliter tip.

Add to the pellet 200 microliters of salt-free modified ripa buffer with protease inhibitors. Tap the pipette tip against the bottom of the microcentrifuge tube to draw the pellet into the tip. Pipette the pellet up and down 15 times.

The sample should become thick and sticky as the pellet breaks up. Homogenize each sample in this way and incubate the samples on ice for three minutes. Then centrifuge the samples at 6500 G’s in four-degree Celsius for three minutes.

Transfer the supernatants to clean 1.5 milliliter microcentrifuge tubes. To each pellet, add 200 milliliters of modified ripa buffer with 100 millimolar sodium chloride and with protease inhibitors. Pipette the pellet up and down 15 times.

If the pellet is initially difficult to draw into the pipette tip, tap the tip on the bottom of the tube. Repeat this process for each sample and incubate the samples on ice for three minutes. Centrifuge the samples at 6500 G’s in four-degree Celsius for three minutes.

Transfer the supernatants to new 1.5 milliliter microcentrifuge tubes. Continue extracting samples into modified ripa buffer solutions with increasing sodium chloride concentrations. When the pellet no longer stays at the bottom of the tube, place the pellet in the centrifuge tube cap before decanting the supernatant.

After the serial salt extraction, for each sample, add 70 milliliters of four times protein loading dye to each of the five supernatant fractions. Load 30 microliters of each fraction onto an SDS acrylamide gel. Perform a standard western blot by transferring the proteins to a membrane and staining with the appropriate primary antibodies.

Incubate the blot in secondary antibodies labeled with an infrared dye and image the blot. Use image analysis software to calculate the band intensity of each salt concentration. Plot the band intensity against the salt concentration to determine the elution pattern of the protein of interest.

Sequential Salt Extraction of the proteins ARID1a and Polybromo 1 showed consistent elution with salt concentrations of 200 and 300 millimolar, respectively. Non-sequential salt extraction of the same proteins showed less consistent results. The incubation time must be optimized for each protein being examined.

Thus, SSE was used to examine elution profiles after varying incubation lengths. A transcriptional activator, Polybromo 1, showed similar elution profiles when incubated for three minutes and 10 minutes. The transcriptional repressor, Polycomb Repressive Complex 1, indicated by BMI1, needed more than three minutes to be released from chromatin.

Protein-protein interactions were investigated by examining the change in elution profiles. In the presence of an inhibitor, bromodomain containing protein four alluded at lower salt concentrations than without the inhibitor. Differences in the histone patters were observed when cells were treated with a histone deacetylase inhibitor, altering the landscape of the chromatin.

Changes in protein binding when cells experienced genomic stress were also reflected in elution profiles. Here, the increase in salt concentration needed for elution, suggested that Polybromo 1 binds more tightly to chromatin following DNA damage with Doxorubicin. Once mastered, this technique can be done in two to three hours if it is performed properly.

While attempting this procedure, remember to be as consistent as possible with your treatment of each sample. This procedure can be used in the initial steps of a study to elucidate the mechanism and regulation of a chromatin-binding protein. This saves time and money on unnecessary genome-wide studies.