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African trypanosomes are mammalian pathogens that must regularly change their protein coat to survive in the host bloodstream. Chronic trypanosome infections are potentiated by their ability to access a deep genomic repertoire of Variant Surface Glycoprotein (VSG) genes and switch from the expression of one VSG to another. Switching VSG expression is largely based in DNA recombination events that result in chromosome translocations between an acceptor site, which houses the actively transcribed VSG, and a donor gene, drawn from an archive of more than 2,000 silent VSGs. One element implicated in these duplicative gene conversion events is a DNA repeat of approximately 70 bp that is found in long regions within each BES and short iterations proximal to VSGs within the silent archive. Early observations showing that 70-bp repeats can be recombination boundaries during VSG switching led to the prediction that VSG-proximal 70-bp repeats provide recombinatorial homology. Yet, this long held assumption had not been tested and no specific function for the conserved 70-bp repeats had been demonstrated. In the present study, the 70-bp repeats were genetically manipulated under conditions that induce gene conversion. In this manner, we demonstrated that 70-bp repeats promote access to archival VSGs. Synthetic repeat DNA sequences were then employed to identify the length, sequence, and directionality of repeat regions required for this activity. In addition, manipulation of the 70-bp repeats allowed us to observe a link between VSG switching and the cell cycle that had not been appreciated. Together these data provide definitive support for the long-standing hypothesis that 70-bp repeats provide recombinatorial homology during switching. Yet, the fact that silent archival VSGs are selected under these conditions suggests the 70-bp repeats also direct DNA pairing and recombination machinery away from the closest homologs (silent BESs) and toward the rest of the archive.

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Trypanosoma brucei, a causative agent of African Sleeping Sickness, constantly changes its dense variant surface glycoprotein (VSG) coat to avoid elimination by the immune system of its mammalian host, using an extensive repertoire of dedicated genes. However, the dynamics of VSG expression in T. brucei during an infection are poorly understood. We have developed a method, based on de novo assembly of VSGs, for quantitatively examining the diversity of expressed VSGs in any population of trypanosomes and monitored VSG population dynamics in vivo. Our experiments revealed unexpected diversity within parasite populations and a mechanism for diversifying the genome-encoded VSG repertoire. The interaction between T. brucei and its host is substantially more dynamic and nuanced than previously expected.

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Trypanosoma brucei evades the adaptive immune response through the expression of antigenically distinct Variant Surface Glycoprotein (VSG) coats. To understand the progression and mechanisms of VSG switching, and to identify the VSGs expressed in populations of trypanosomes, it is desirable to predetermine the available repertoire of VSG genes (the 'VSGnome'). To date, the catalog of VSG genes present in any strain is far from complete and the majority of current information regarding VSGs is derived from the TREU927 strain that is not commonly used as an experimental model. We have assembled, annotated and analyzed 2563 distinct and previously unsequenced genes encoding complete and partial VSGs of the widely used Lister 427 strain of T. brucei. Around 80% of the VSGnome consists of incomplete genes or pseudogenes. Read-depth analysis demonstrated that most VSGs exist as single copies, but 360 exist as two or more indistinguishable copies. The assembled regions include five functional metacyclic VSG expression sites. One third of minichromosome sub-telomeres contain a VSG (64-67 VSGs on ∼96 minichromosomes), of which 85% appear to be functionally competent. The minichromosomal repertoire is very dynamic, differing among clones of the same strain. Few VSGs are unique along their entire length: frequent recombination events are likely to have shaped (and to continue to shape) the repertoire. In spite of their low sequence conservation and short window of expression, VSGs show evidence of purifying selection, with ∼40% of non-synonymous mutations being removed from the population. VSGs show a strong codon-usage bias that is distinct from that of any other group of trypanosome genes. VSG sequences are generally very divergent between Lister 427 and TREU927 strains of T. brucei, but those that are highly similar are not found in 'protected' genomic environments, but may reflect genetic exchange among populations.

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We describe two gene-knockout (KO) strategies in Trypanosoma brucei using Cre recombinase and loxP sites. Due to the limited number of selection markers for T. brucei, it has been difficult to generate a mutant with two genes knocked out and impractical to simultaneously knockout more than two genes, deterring detailed studies of important cellular mechanisms. The first KO strategy described can overcome the marker problem by allowing continuous re-use of drug-resistance markers. The same KO vector can be used to make a conditional KO system, when a gene of interest is essential for cell viability. As a gene of interest is removed from its original chromosomal locus by the induction of Cre recombinase, deletion is complete and instantaneous. This makes it easier to identify primary effects rather than having secondary effects obscuring phenotypic assessment, as is often the case with RNAi silencing.

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Trypanosoma brucei variant surface glycoprotein (VSG) expression is a classic example of allelic exclusion. While the genome of T. brucei contains >2,000 VSG genes and VSG pseudogenes, only one allele is expressed at the surface of each infectious trypanosome and the others are repressed. Along with recombinatorial VSG switching, allelic exclusion provides a major host evasion mechanism for trypanosomes, a phenomenon known as antigenic variation. To extend our understanding of how trypanosomes escape host immunity by differential expression of VSGs, we attempted to identify genes that contribute to VSG silencing, by performing a loss-of-silencing screen in T. brucei using a transposon-mediated random insertional mutagenesis. One identified gene, which we initially named LOS1, encodes a T. brucei MCM-Binding Protein (TbMCM-BP). Here we show that TbMCM-BP is essential for viability of infectious bloodstream-form (BF) trypanosome and is required for proper cell-cycle progression. Tandem affinity purification of TbMCM-BP followed by mass spectrometry identified four subunits (MCM4-MCM7) of the T. brucei MCM complex, a replicative helicase, and MCM8, a subunit that is uniquely co-purified with TbMCM-BP. TbMCM-BP is required not only for repression of subtelomeric VSGs but also for silencing of life-cycle specific, insect-stage genes, procyclin and procyclin-associated genes (PAGs), that are normally repressed in BF trypanosomes and are transcribed by RNA polymerase I. Our study uncovers a functional link between chromosome maintenance and RNA pol I-mediated gene silencing in T. brucei.

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Binding of the Origin Recognition Complex (ORC) to replication origins is essential for initiation of DNA replication, but ORC has non-essential functions outside of DNA replication, including in heterochromatic gene silencing and telomere maintenance. Trypanosoma brucei, a protozoan parasite that causes human African trypanosomiasis, uses antigenic variation as a major virulence mechanism to evade the host's immune attack by expressing its major surface antigen, the Variant Surface Glycoprotein (VSG), in a monoallelic manner. An Orc1/Cdc6 homologue has been identified in T. brucei, but its role in DNA replication has not been directly confirmed and its potential involvement in VSG repression or switching has not been thoroughly investigated. In this study, we show that TbOrc1 is essential for nuclear DNA replication in mammalian-infectious bloodstream and tsetse procyclic forms (BF and PF). Depletion of TbOrc1 resulted in derepression of telomere-linked silent VSGs in both BF and PF, and increased VSG switching particularly through the in situ transcriptional switching mechanism. TbOrc1 associates with telomere repeats but appears to do so independently of two known T. brucei telomere proteins, TbRAP1 and TbTRF. We conclude that TbOrc1 has conserved functions in DNA replication and is also required to control telomere-linked VSG expression and VSG switching.

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Unraveling the intricate interactions between Trypanosoma brucei, the protozoan parasite causing African trypanosomiasis, and the tsetse (Glossina) vector remains a challenge. Metacyclic trypanosomes, which inhabit the tsetse salivary glands, transmit the disease and are produced through a complex differentiation and unknown program. By overexpressing a single RNA-binding protein, TbRBP6, in cultured noninfectious trypanosomes, we recapitulated the developmental stages that have been observed in tsetse, including the generation of infective metacyclic forms expressing the variant surface glycoprotein. Thus, events leading to acquisition of infectivity in the insect vector are now accessible to laboratory investigation, providing an opening for new intervention strategies.

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Trypanosoma brucei is a master of antigenic variation and immune response evasion. Utilizing a genomic repertoire of more than 1000 Variant Surface Glycoprotein-encoding genes (VSGs), T. brucei can change its protein coat by "switching" from the expression of one VSG to another. Each active VSG is monoallelically expressed from only one of approximately 15 subtelomeric sites. Switching VSG expression occurs by three predominant mechanisms, arguably the most significant of which is the non-reciprocal exchange of VSG containing DNA by duplicative gene conversion (GC). How T. brucei orchestrates its complex switching mechanisms remains to be elucidated. Recent work has demonstrated that an exogenous DNA break in the active site could initiate a GC based switch, yet the source of the switch-initiating DNA lesion under natural conditions is still unknown. Here we investigated the hypothesis that telomere length directly affects VSG switching. We demonstrate that telomerase deficient strains with short telomeres switch more frequently than genetically identical strains with long telomeres and that, when the telomere is short, switching preferentially occurs by GC. Our data supports the hypothesis that a short telomere at the active VSG expression site results in an increase in subtelomeric DNA breaks, which can initiate GC based switching. In addition to their significance for T. brucei and telomere biology, the findings presented here have implications for the many diverse pathogens that organize their antigenic genes in subtelomeric regions.

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RNA-binding proteins that target mRNA coding regions are emerging as regulators of post-transcriptional processes in eukaryotes. Here we describe a newly identified RNA-binding protein, RBP42, which targets the coding region of mRNAs in the insect form of the African trypanosome, Trypanosoma brucei. RBP42 is an essential protein and associates with polysome-bound mRNAs in the cytoplasm. A global survey of RBP42-bound mRNAs was performed by applying HITS-CLIP technology, which captures protein-RNA interactions in vivo using UV light. Specific RBP42-mRNA interactions, as well as mRNA interactions with a known RNA-binding protein, were purified using specific antibodies. Target RNA sequences were identified and quantified using high-throughput RNA sequencing. Analysis revealed that RBP42 bound mainly within the coding region of mRNAs that encode proteins involved in cellular energy metabolism. Although the mechanism of RBP42's function is unclear at present, we speculate that RBP42 plays a critical role in modulating T. brucei energy metabolism.

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Histone variants are non-allelic protein isoforms that play key roles in diversifying chromatin structure. The known number of such variants has greatly increased in recent years, but the lack of naming conventions for them has led to a variety of naming styles, multiple synonyms and misleading homographs that obscure variant relationships and complicate database searches. We propose here a unified nomenclature for variants of all five classes of histones that uses consistent but flexible naming conventions to produce names that are informative and readily searchable. The nomenclature builds on historical usage and incorporates phylogenetic relationships, which are strong predictors of structure and function. A key feature is the consistent use of punctuation to represent phylogenetic divergence, making explicit the relationships among variant subtypes that have previously been implicit or unclear. We recommend that by default new histone variants be named with organism-specific paralog-number suffixes that lack phylogenetic implication, while letter suffixes be reserved for structurally distinct clades of variants. For clarity and searchability, we encourage the use of descriptors that are separate from the phylogeny-based variant name to indicate developmental and other properties of variants that may be independent of structure.

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At any time, each cell of the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma brucei expresses a single species of its major antigenic protein, the variant surface glycoprotein (VSG), from a repertoire of >2,000 VSG genes and pseudogenes. The potential to express different VSGs by transcription and recombination allows the parasite to escape the antibody-mediated host immune response, a mechanism known as antigenic variation. The active VSG is transcribed from a sub-telomeric polycistronic unit called the expression site (ES), whose promoter is 40-60 kb upstream of the VSG. While the mechanisms that initiate recombination remain unclear, the resolution phase of these reactions results in the recombinational replacement of the expressed VSG with a donor from one of three distinct chromosomal locations; sub-telomeric loci on the 11 essential chromosomes, on minichromosomes, or at telomere-distal loci. Depending on the type of recombinational replacement (single or double crossover, duplicative gene conversion, etc), several DNA-repair pathways have been thought to play a role. Here we show that VSG recombination relies on at least two distinct DNA-repair pathways, one of which requires RMI1-TOPO3α to suppress recombination and one that is dependent on RAD51 and RMI1. These genetic interactions suggest that both RAD51-dependent and RAD51-independent recombination pathways operate in antigenic switching and that trypanosomes differentially utilize recombination factors for VSG switching, depending on currently unknown parameters within the ES.

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Trypanosoma brucei undergoes major biochemical and morphological changes during its development from the bloodstream form in the mammalian host to the procyclic form in the midgut of its insect host. The underlying regulation of gene expression, however, is poorly understood. More than 60% of the predicted genes remain annotated as hypothetical, and the 5' and 3' untranslated regions important for regulation of gene expression are unknown for >90% of the genes. In this review, we compare the data from four recently published high-throughput RNA sequencing studies in light of the different experimental setups and discuss how these data can enhance genome annotation and give insights into the regulation of gene expression in T. brucei.

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Homologous recombination (HR) mediates one of the major mechanisms of trypanosome antigenic variation by placing a different variant surface glycoprotein (VSG) gene under the control of the active expression site (ES). It is believed that the majority of VSG switching events occur by duplicative gene conversion, but only a few DNA repair genes that are central to HR have been assigned a role in this process. Gene conversion events that are associated with crossover are rarely seen in VSG switching, similar to mitotic HR. In other organisms, TOPO3alpha (Top3 in yeasts), a type IA topoisomerase, is part of a complex that is involved in the suppression of crossovers. We therefore asked whether a related mechanism might suppress VSG recombination. Using a set of reliable recombination and switching assays that could score individual switching mechanisms, we discovered that TOPO3alpha function is conserved in Trypanosoma brucei and that TOPO3alpha plays a critical role in antigenic switching. Switching frequency increased 10-40-fold in the absence of TOPO3alpha and this hyper-switching phenotype required RAD51. Moreover, the preference of 70-bp repeats for VSG recombination was mitigated, while homology regions elsewhere in ES were highly favored, in the absence of TOPO3alpha. Our data suggest that TOPO3alpha may remove undesirable recombination intermediates constantly arising between active and silent ESs, thereby balancing ES integrity against VSG recombination.

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Transcription of protein-coding genes in trypanosomes is polycistronic and gene expression is primarily regulated by post-transcriptional mechanisms. Sequence motifs in the untranslated regions regulate mRNA trans-splicing and RNA stability, yet where UTRs begin and end is known for very few genes. We used high-throughput RNA-sequencing to determine the genome-wide steady-state mRNA levels ('transcriptomes') for approximately 90% of the genome in two stages of the Trypanosoma brucei life cycle cultured in vitro. Almost 6% of genes were differentially expressed between the two life-cycle stages. We identified 5' splice-acceptor sites (SAS) and polyadenylation sites (PAS) for 6959 and 5948 genes, respectively. Most genes have between one and three alternative SAS, but PAS are more dispersed. For 488 genes, SAS were identified downstream of the originally assigned initiator ATG, so a subsequent in-frame ATG presumably designates the start of the true coding sequence. In some cases, alternative SAS would give rise to mRNAs encoding proteins with different N-terminal sequences. We could identify the introns in two genes known to contain them, but found no additional genes with introns. Our study demonstrates the usefulness of the RNA-seq technology to study the transcriptional landscape of an organism whose genome has not been fully annotated.

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Base J is a hypermodified DNA base localized primarily to telomeric regions of the genome of Trypanosoma brucei. We have previously characterized two thymidine-hydroxylases (TH), JBP1 and JBP2, which regulate J-biosynthesis. JBP2 is a chromatin re-modeling protein that induces de novo J-synthesis, allowing JBP1, a J-DNA binding protein, to stimulate additional J-synthesis. Here, we show that both JBP2 and JBP1 are capable of stimulating de novo J-synthesis. We localized the JBP1- and JBP2-stimulated J by anti-J immunoprecipitation and high-throughput sequencing. This genome-wide analysis revealed an enrichment of base J at regions flanking polymerase II polycistronic transcription units (Pol II PTUs) throughout the T. brucei genome. Chromosome-internal J deposition is primarily mediated by JBP1, whereas JBP2-stimulated J deposition at the telomeric regions. However, the maintenance of J at JBP1-specific regions is dependent on JBP2 SWI/SNF and TH activity. That similar regions of Leishmania major also contain base J highlights the functional importance of the modified base at Pol II PTUs within members of the kinetoplastid family. The regulation of J synthesis/localization by two THs and potential biological function of J in regulating kinetoplastid gene expression is discussed.

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Recent studies have identified histone modifications and suggested a role for epigenetic gene regulation in Trypanosoma brucei. The histone modification H4K10ac and histone variants H2AZ and H2BV localize to probable sites of transcription initiation. Although all T. brucei histones have very evolutionarily divergent N-terminal tails, histone H3 shows conservation with other eukaryotic organisms in 6 of 8 amino acids encompassing lysine 4. Tri-methylation of H3K4 is generally associated with transcription. We therefore generated a specific antibody to T. brucei H3K4me3 and performed chromosome immunoprecipitation and high-throughput sequencing. We show that H3K4me3 is enriched at the start of polycistronic transcription units at divergent strand-switch regions and at other sites of RNA polymerase II transcription reinitiation. H3K4me3 largely co-localizes with H4K10ac, but with a skew towards the upstream side of the H4K10ac peak, suggesting that it is a component of specific nucleosomes that play a role in Pol II transcription initiation.

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In most eukaryotes, RNA polymerase I (Pol I) exclusively transcribes long arrays of identical rRNA genes (ribosomal DNA [rDNA]). African trypanosomes have the unique property of using Pol I to also transcribe the variant surface glycoprotein VSG genes. VSGs are important virulence factors because their switching allows trypanosomes to escape the host immune system, a mechanism known as antigenic variation. Only one VSG is transcribed at a time from one of 15 bloodstream-form expression sites (BESs). Although it is clear that switching among BESs does not involve DNA rearrangements and that regulation is probably epigenetic, it remains unknown why BESs are transcribed by Pol I and what roles are played by chromatin structure and histone modifications. Using chromatin immunoprecipitation, micrococcal nuclease digestion, and chromatin fractionation, we observed that there are fewer nucleosomes at the active BES and that these are irregularly spaced compared to silent BESs. rDNA coding regions are also depleted of nucleosomes, relative to the rDNA spacer. In contrast, genes transcribed by Pol II are organized in a more compact, regularly spaced, nucleosomal structure. These observations provide new insight on antigenic variation by showing that chromatin remodeling is an intrinsic feature of BES regulation.

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Epigenetic regulation is important in many facets of eukaryotic biology. Recent work has suggested that the basic mechanisms underlying epigenetic regulation extend to eukaryotic parasites. The identification of post-translational histone modifications and chromatin-modifying enzymes is beginning to reveal both common and novel functions for chromatin in these parasites. In this Review, we compare the role of epigenetics in African trypanosomes and humans in several biological processes. We discuss how the study of trypanosome chromatin might help us to better understand the evolution of epigenetic processes.

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