The evolutionary capacitor HSP90 buffers the regulatory effects of mammalian endogenous retroviruses.

The molecular chaperone heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) is thought to buffer genetic variation uncoupling phenotypic outcome from individual genotypes. HSP90 thus acts as an evolutionary capacitor by facilitating an accumulation of natural genetic variation. The molecular mechanism underlying the buffering ability is unclear, and HSP90-contingent genetic variation maps both to coding and non-coding parts of the genome. Our genome-wide data indicate that a compromised chaperoning activity of HSP90 causes derepression of endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) in mouse somatic cells. This results in an upregulation of host genes located in the neighborhood of pre-existing ERVs insertion sites. We provide genetic and biochemical evidence that HSP90 cooperates with KAP1/ SETDB1 histone methyltranferase pathway to repress ERVs. Individual mouse strains have unique integration sites of ERVs in their genomes. Consequently distinct genes are responsive to HSP90 inhibitor in different mouse strains depending on the position of the genes vis-à-vis strain-specific ERV insertion sites. Since ERVs have been exapted to drive novel transcriptional networks during mammalian evolution, HSP90 may have acted as a capacitor by buffering variation caused by ERV in non-coding regions of the genome. Our studies provide the first molecular framework by which HSP90 can mitigate genetic variation in gene-regulatory regions affecting gene expression and phenotypes. Overall design: We have performed RNA-seq in mouse embryonic stem cells, neuronal progenitor cells and bone-marrow-derived macrophages treated with NVP-AUY922 in triplicates.

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Hummel B, Hansen EC, Yoveva A, Aprile-Garcia F, Hussong R, Sawarkar R