Pioneer factors are transcription factors that can directly bind condensed chromatin. They can have positive and negative effects on transcription and are important in recruiting other transcription factors and histone modification enzymes as well as controlling DNA methylation. They were first discovered in 2002 as factors capable of binding to target sites on nucleosomal DNA in compacted chromatin and endowing competency for gene activity during hepatogenesis. Pioneer factors are involved in initiating cell differentiation and activation of cell-specific genes. This property is observed in histone fold-domain containing transcription factors (fork head box (FOX) and NF-Y) and other transcription factors that use zinc finger(s) for DNA binding (Groucho TLE, Gal4, and GATA). The eukaryotic cell condenses its genome into tightly packed chromatin and nucleosomes. This ability saves space in the nucleus for only actively transcribed genes and hides unnecessary or detrimental genes from being transcribed. Access to these condensed regions is done by chromatin remodelling by either balancing histone modifications or directly with pioneer factors that can loosen the chromatin themselves or as a flag recruiting other factors. Pioneer factors are not necessarily required for assembly of the transcription apparatus and may dissociate after being replaced by other factors.
Active rearrangement
Pioneer factors can also actively affect transcription by directly opening up condensed chromatin in an ATP-independent process. This is a common trait of fork head box factors (which contain a winged helix DNA-binding domain that mimics the DNA-binding domain of the linker H1 histone), and NF-Y (whose NF-YB and NF-YC subunits contain histone-fold domains similar to those of the core histones H2A/H2B).
Fork head box factors The similarity to histone H1 explains how fork head factors are able to bind chromatin by interacting with the major groove of only the one available side of DNA wrapped around a nucleosome. Fork head domains also have a helix that confers sequence specificity unlike linker histone. The C terminus is associated with higher mobility around the nucleosome than linker histone, displacing it and rearranging nucleosomal landscapes effectively. This active re-arrangement of the nucleosomes allows for other transcription factors to bind the available DNA. In thyroid cell differentiation FoxE binds to compacted chromatin of the thyroid peroxidase promoter and opens it for NF1 binding.
NF-Y NF-Y is a heterotrimeric complex composed of NF-YA, NF-YB, and NF-YC subunits. The key structural feature of the NF-Y/DNA complex is the minor-groove interaction of its DNA binding domain-containing subunit NF-YA, which induces an ~80° bend in the DNA. NF-YB and NF-YC interact with DNA through non-specific histone-fold domain-DNA contacts. NF-YA's unique DNA-binding mode and NF-YB/NF-YC's nucleosome-like properties of non-specific DNA binding impose sufficient spatial constraints to induce flanking nucleosomes to slide outward, making nearby recognition sites for other transcription factors accessible.
Passive factors
Pioneer factors can function passively, by acting as a bookmark for the cell to recruit other transcription factors to specific genes in condensed chromatin. This can be important for priming the cell for a rapid response as the enhancer is already bound by a pioneer transcription factor giving it a head start towards assembling the transcription preinitiation complex. Hormone responses are often quickly induced in the cell using this priming method such as with the estrogen receptor. Another form of priming is when an enhancer is simultaneously bound by activating and repressing pioneer factors. This balance can be tipped by dissociation of one of the factors. In hepatic cell differentiation the activating pioneer factor FOXA1 recruits a repressor, grg3, that prevents transcription until the repressor is down-regulated later on in the differentiation process.
In a direct role pioneer factors can bind an enhancer and recruit activation complex that will modify the chromatin directly. The change in the chromatin changes the affinity, decreasing the affinity of the pioneer factor such that it is replaced by a transcription factor that has a higher affinity. This is a mechanism for the cell to switch a gene on was observed with glucocorticoid receptor recruiting modification factors that then modify the site to bind activated estrogen receptor which was coined as a “bait and switch” mechanism.
Epigenetic effects
Pioneer factors can exhibit their greatest range of effects on transcription through the modulation of epigenetic factors by recruiting activating or repressing histone modification enzymes and controlling CpG methylation by protecting specific cysteine residues. This has effects on controlling the timing of transcription during cell differentiation processes.
Histone modification Histone modification is a well-studied mechanism to transiently adjust chromatin density. Pioneer factors can play a role in this by binding specific enhancers and flagging histone modification enzymes to that specific gene. Repressive pioneer factors can inhibit transcription by recruiting factors that modify histones that further tighten the chromatin. This is important to limit gene expression to specific cell types and has to be removed only when cell differentiation begins. FoxD3 has been associated as a repressor of both B-cell and melanocytic cell differentiation pathways, maintaining repressive histone modifications where bound, that have to be overcome to start differentiation. Pioneer factors can also be associated with recruiting transcription-activating histone modifications. Enzymes that modify H3K4 with mono and di-methylation are associated with increasing transcription and have been shown to bind pioneer factors. In B cell differentiation PU.1 is necessary to signal specific histones for activating H3K4me1 modifications that differentiate hematopoietic stem cells into either the B-cell or macrophage lineage. FoxA1 binding induces HSK4me2 during neuronal differentiation of pluripotent stem cells as well as the loss of DNA methylation. SOX9 recruits histone modification enzymes MLL3 and MLL4 to deposit H3K4me1 prior to the opening of enhancers in developing hair follicle and basal cell carcinoma.
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