Cited by 1,883Genomics and Chromatin DynamicsChromatin Remodeling and CancerNuclear Structure and Function

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 97 of the 97 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; none of the 55 sources its claims cite is checked for support yet.

Cohesin Loss Eliminates All Loop Domains

Open access

Published version of a preprint

Abstract

SUMMARY The human genome folds to create thousands of intervals, called “contact domains,” that exhibit enhanced contact frequency within themselves. “Loop domains” form because of tethering between two loci – almost always bound by CTCF and cohesin – lying on the same chromosome. “Compartment domains” form when genomic intervals with similar histone marks co-segregate. Here, we explore the effects of degrading cohesin. All loop domains are eliminated, but neither compartment domains nor histone marks are affected. Loss of loop domains does not lead to widespread ectopic gene activation, but does affect a significant minority of active genes. In particular, cohesin loss causes superenhancers to co-localize, forming hundreds of links within and across chromosomes, and affecting the regulation of nearby genes. We then restore cohesin and monitor the re-formation of each loop. Although reformation rates vary greatly, many megabase-sized loops recovered in under an hour, consistent with a model where loop extrusion is rapid.

Overview

AI snapshot

Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

Cohesin degradation in HCT-116 cells eliminates all loop domains while leaving compartment domains and histone marks intact, and cohesin restoration rapidly re-forms many loops. Loss of cohesin also strengthens superenhancer links and affects transcription of a small minority of genes, often near superenhancers.

Key findings

  • Untreated cells had 3,170 loops, including 2,140 loop domains; after auxin-induced RAD21 degradation, only 9 loop domains were called and all were false positives. Compartmentalization was preserved (mean Pearson’s r = 0.968 across chromosomes).
  • Loop-domain recovery varied widely: of 2,038 loop domains analyzed, fast domains (>95th percentile) were 159-fold more likely than slow domains (<5th percentile) to span superenhancers (2.94 vs. 0.02 SEs/Mb) and 26-fold more likely to contain strong NIPBL sites (4.23/Mb vs. 0.17/Mb). Many megabase-sized loops recovered in under an hour; a ~900 kb loop restored within 40 minutes implied extrusion of at least 375 bp/s, or at least 188 bp/s per subunit.
  • Cohesin loss produced 61 cohesin-independent loops, with 203 interchromosomal links; their anchors were enriched for superenhancers (41 of 64 anchors overlapped the 387 HCT116 superenhancers, 37.5-fold enrichment; top 100 superenhancers showed 76-fold enrichment).
  • Transcription changes were limited: among 14,853 unexpressed genes, 1% (216) were activated; among 12,222 expressed genes, 87% (10,615) changed by less than 30%, 64 genes (0.5%) showed 2-fold change, and 2 genes showed 5-fold change. Downregulated genes were enriched near superenhancers (23 of 49 within 500 kb, 4.8-fold enrichment).

Methods

  • Used an auxin-inducible degron in HCT-116 RAD21-mAC cells to degrade RAD21 with 500 µM IAA; confirmed cohesin loss by microscopy and ChIP-Seq for RAD21/SMC1.
  • Generated in situ Hi-C maps before and after 6 h auxin treatment (~6 billion contacts: 3.0B untreated, 2.9B treated), plus time-course Hi-C during treatment and withdrawal; analyzed with Juicer, HiCCUPS, Arrowhead, APA, and ADA.
  • Performed ChIP-Seq for CTCF and histone modifications, PRO-Seq for nascent transcription with DESeq2 and Drosophila spike-in controls, and molecular dynamics simulations combining loop extrusion and compartmentalization.

Limitations

  • The paper states that extrusion-speed estimates are lower bounds because they ignore auxin clearance and cohesin re-loading time; that modest transcriptional effects cannot be dismissed as unimportant; and that simulations do not rule out a central role for protein chaperones in vivo.
  • The paper notes a higher false-discovery rate for loop calling after cohesin loss, karyotypic abnormalities/rearrangements in HCT-116, and the need for further in vivo and in vitro experiments on oligonucleosome-scale segregation.
  • Evident from the text: findings rely mainly on one cell line (HCT-116), use a 6 h early timepoint for PRO-Seq, and include manually curated cohesin-independent loop lists, which may limit generalization.

Model-written summary. Check it against the paper before relying on it.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.cell.2017.09.026

Cites

97 of 97 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

0 of 55 cited sources checked · 0 supported · 0 flagged

Show all 157 claims

  • It may state two separate claims as one. 78
  • Probably not a substantial claim. 64
  • The quote only partly states this claim. 9
136 of 136
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    Phase separation leads to the compartmentalization of chromatin intervals bearing similar patterns of histone marks.

    “The above simulations assume that phase separation leads to the compartmentalization of chromatin intervals bearing similar patterns of histone marks.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Loop extrusion cannot create links between loci on different chromosomes.

    “whereas loop extrusion cannot form interchromosomal links.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    HiCCUPS false positives arise from data artifacts that are independent of cohesin-mediated looping.

    “as one might expect false positives to arise from artifacts in the data that are independent of cohesin-mediated looping”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The extrusion mechanism cannot act across two separate DNA molecules.

    “since extrusion cannot occur on two topologically distinct molecules..”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The convergent rule—that CTCF motifs at loop anchors point toward the loop interior—is a valid expectation for extrusion-based loops.

    “consistent with the convergent rule”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Segregated interactions between short chromatin intervals, such as the cohesin-independent loop anchors observed, have not previously been reported.

    “Segregated interactions between short chromatin intervals, such as the cohesin-independent loop anchors we observed, have not previously been reported, and require the strength of the interaction between similarly-decorated nucleosomes to overcome the stiffness of the local chromatin fiber.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The biophysical consequences of the H4K16Ac mark are well understood as more rigid tails that inhibit tail/tail internucleosome interactions and disrupt stabilization of condensed chromatin fiber.

    “(The biophysical consequences of the H4K16Ac mark have been studied in detail, and are well understood in terms of more rigid tails, which in turn inhibit tail/tail internucleosome interactions and thus disrupt crucial stabilization of condensed chromatin fiber).”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Compartment transitions can only be defined in Hi-C maps at coarse resolutions of 25kb and above.

    “Because compartment transitions can only be defined in Hi-C maps at coarse resolutions (25kb and above), the compartment transition of each simulation replicate was varied randomly within 30kb (30 monomers) of defined transition points.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Alterations in histone-tail flexibility can be caused by chemical modifications of histone tails, DNA, or linker histones, as well as by protein anchoring, which can restrict interactions to specific domains.

    “Such alterations in tail flexibility can be caused by chemical modifications of the histone tails, DNA, or linker histones, as well as by protein anchoring, which can restrict the range of interactions to specific domains.”
9 of 9

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.

  • Ectopic-activation percentage is understated for the control comparison

    Minor

    Of the 14,884 initially unexpressed genes, 255 is 1.71%, which rounds to 2%, not the reported 1%.

    Reported 1 · recomputed 1.713249

  • Compartment domains are described as both unaffected and weaker

    Minor

    The abstract says compartment domains are unaffected by cohesin loss, whereas the Methods say the retained compartment domains are weaker than those in untreated cells.

  • Histone-mark name differs within the broad-domain analysis

    Minor

    The analysis lists H4K17Ac among the broad-source marks examined, but gives the resulting boundary count for H4K16Ac. These designate different histone residues.

  • Leaky-transcription percentage is understated for the control comparison

    Minor

    The reported 1,179 genes out of 14,884 constitute 7.92%, which rounds to 8%, not 7%.

    Reported 7 · recomputed 7.921258

4 of 4

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Metadata

Authors
Rao, S. S. P., Huang, S.-C., Glenn St Hilaire, B., Engreitz, J. M., Perez, E. M., Kieffer-Kwon, K.-R., Sanborn, A. L., Johnstone, S. E., Bascom, G. D., Bochkov, I. D., Huang, X., Shamim, M. S., Shin, J., Turner, D., Ye, Z., Omer, A. D., Robinson, J. T., Schlick, T., Bernstein, B. E., Casellas, R., Lander, E. S., & Aiden, E. L.
Affiliations
  • Baylor College of Medicine (US)
  • Broad Institute (US)
  • National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (US)
  • New York University (US)
  • National Institutes of Health (US)
Corresponding author
Aiden, Erez Lieberman
Venue
Cell
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2017-10
Volume
171
Issue
2
Pages
305-320.e24
ISSN
0092-8674 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2761461280
Cited by
1,883
References
97
Citations by year
2026: 160 · 2025: 210 · 2024: 192 · 2023: 218 · 2022: 217 · 2021: 238 · 2020: 245 · 2019: 237 · 2018: 146 · 2017: 18
FWCI
72.64
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Cell (publishedVersion)
  • bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • UWA Profiles and Research Repository (UWA) (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
  • DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • PMC
Funders
  • Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship
  • Fannie and John Hertz Foundation Fellowship
  • Cornelia de Lange Syndrome Foundation
  • Stanford Medical Scholars Fellowship
  • NIGMS (R01GM055164)
  • NIH New Innovator Award (1DP2OD008540-01)
  • NSF Physics Frontier Center (PHY-1427654)
  • NHGRI Center for Excellence for Genomic Sciences (HG006193)
  • Welch Foundation (Q-1866)
  • NVIDIA Research Center Award
  • IBM University Challenge Award
  • Google Research Award
  • Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas Scholar Award (R1304)
  • McNair Medical Institute Scholar Award
  • NIH 4D Nucleome (U01HL130010)
  • NIH Encyclopedia of DNA Elements Mapping Center Award (UM1HG009375)
  • President’s Early Career Award in Science and Engineering (4DP2OD008540)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Genomics and Chromatin Dynamics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Chromatin Remodeling and Cancer
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Nuclear Structure and Function
Keywords
cohesin, loop domains, 3D genome organization, chromatin looping, CTCF, histone modifications, super-enhancers, loop extrusion, gene expression regulation, chromatin folding
MeSH terms
CCCTC-Binding Factor, Cohesins, Cell Nucleus, Chromosomal Proteins, Non-Histone, Chromosomes, DNA-Binding Proteins, Enhancer Elements, Genetic, Humans, Nuclear Proteins, Nucleosomes, Phosphoproteins, Repressor Proteins, Genome, Human, Cell Cycle Proteins, Histone Code, Cell Line, Tumor

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