Epigenetics markers ChIPSeq in mouse Alkbh1 KO and WT ESC

It has widely accepted that 5-methylcytosine is the only form of DNA methylation in mammalian genomes, whereas the other forms, such as N6-methyladenine, primarily exist in prokaryotes and only a few eukaryotes. Herein, we demonstrated the surprising presence of N6-methyladenine in mammalian genomes, especially, mouse embryonic stem cells. This modification is enriched at histone variant H2A.X-deposited genomic regions in wild type embryonic stem cells. Our work also showed that a previously unknown DNA demethylase, Alkbh1, is the major demethylase for N6-methyladenine in embryonic stem cells. Increase of N6-methyladenine levels in Alkbh1 deficient cells leads to silencing of genes that regulate embryonic development. Surprisingly, genes located on the X-chromosome, but not the Y-chromosome or autosomes are preferentially silenced by N6-methyladenine. Strikingly, N6-methyladenine in Alkbh1 deficient cells are specifically deposition at young, full-length subfamilies of LINE1 transposons that are strongly enriched on the X chromosome. Furthermore, N6-methyladenine deposition on LINE1s pattern is inversely correlated with their evolutionary age. The deposition of N6-methyladenine results in epigenetic silencing of such L1s, which are otherwise actively transcribed in wild type embryonic stem cells, and the neighboring enhancers and genes. Furthermore, N6-methyladenine induced-silencing resists gene activation signals during embryonic stem cell differentiation. Thus, N6-methyladenine adopts a new function in epigenetic silencing in evolution, distinct from its role in gene activation in other organisms. In summary, our results demonstrate that N6-methyladenine unexpectedly constitutes a crucial component of the epigenetic regulation repertoire in mammalian genomes. First, we used different histone antibodies to enrich for DNA molecules with histone modification or specific variant in mouse ESCs as previously described Native-ChIP methods. Then, co-purified DNA molecules from WT or KO ESCs were subject to HiSeq2000 sequencing and data analysis for histone modification or variant peaks.