7,102 Matching Annotations
  1. Dec 2022
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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      The manuscript by Pereira et al. investigates the phenotype of loss of the MT-associated plus-end-bidding protein CLASP1 in mouse. They find that CLASP1 KO pups are not viable due to rapid respiratory failure and the paper presents an in-depth analysis of the lung phenotype that is quite striking. However, the mechanistic links to previously proposed cellular functions of CLASP1 in mitosis and MT dynamics are weak and confusing.

      For example, the analysis of mitotic defects in MEFs or of MT dynamics in neurons is not convincing and does not really explain anything; if or if not these cellular phenotypes are related to the observed lung defect. (in fact, the discussion of the paper does not even mention again these functions of CLASP1). So, in the end, the reader is left with a menu of choice of whether CLASP1 is directly involved in lung development, required for innervation or for something else. Many other questions are left unanswered: Is innervation defective because lung development is abnormal, or does innervation control development (as it has been proposed in other organs)? How is CLASP1 controlling the lung transcriptome; does this have anything to do with its cellular functions or is this a completely indirect effect, again stemming from a deeper developmental defect? Overall, I think the lung phenotype is interesting and worth publishing. However, I do not exactly know how to resolve the mechanistic questions, but I think it would be best to better focus the paper on the lung phenotype and maybe rearrange the order data are presented (Fig. 4 seems oddly plopped in the middle of the lung analysis).

      Specific comments:

      Fig. S1. It would be good to indicate the number of cells / experiments analyzed. In panel D, there is only one multi-nucleated cell, which without further analysis does not mean much. The authors correlate this mitotic defect with smaller animal size although this connection is not at all conclusive. If both CLASPs are important for mitosis, do CLASP2 KOs have similar size defects? It is also mentioned above that CLASP1 KOs show microcephaly. Are there fewer neurons that might also be linked to a stem cell division defect? I understand that this is not the central point of the paper and important to include given previous work on CLASPs, but it would be good to discuss a little clearer. It seems the authors do not think this is the/a cause of the lung phenotype, but can that be completely excluded?

      Fig. 3. There is not a lot of detail how the analysis in B-E was done, and no primary data for the synaptic defects.

      Fig. 4. Please indicate n of cells / experiments and statistics in the figure legend. In panel B and C, it would help to include the time on the figure itself and to scale the y-axis the same to better illustrate differences. It is very hard to see much in panel D. The quantifications in E and F do not make sense. How can the total neurite length (average of many neurons?) be larger than the longest neurite length? The switch to MT dynamics in Fig. 4 is very abrupt and the relevance is unclear. Where were these kymographs located in the neuron (growth cones or neurites)? Primary data needs to shown here . The changes in catastrophe frequency are not that large and I doubt this can be accurately measured from kymographs as shown. Yes, MTs are important in neurite growth, but the potential link here is very vague. Are similar changes in MT dynamics also seen in the MEFs?

      Minor:

      Fig. 1A please indicate in legend what is CLASP staining (suppose the brown stuff).

      Define HT in text.

      Again, please include statistics in figure legends (and indicate n and p values)

      Significance

      Findings presented in regard to CLASP1 role in lung development are interesting and significant, also as a potential novel model system of newborn respiratory failure. The mechanistic link to known functions of CLASP1 however remains vague and would need substantial additional work to address properly.

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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      The manuscript entitled "CLASP1 is essential for neonatal lung function and survival in mice" by Pereira et al. reports the characterization of the phenotype of a Clasp1 null mutant mouse line. CLASP1 is a microtubule plus-end tracking protein involved in the regulation of microtubule dynamics broadly expressed in the organism. All Clasp1-/- mice die at birth from respiratory failure.

      General comment:

      This is an interesting study about the characterization of a Clasp1 mutant mouse line. The manuscript is clear and well-written. The analysis is descriptive. Many aspects are studied but unfortunately they are covered superficially. However, they open the way to more deepened analyses.

      Specific comments:

      p.6: What is the justification to mention Nfib, Pdpn and Ndst1 mutant mice in the introduction? Do these genes have any cellular/molecular/functional relation with CLASP1?

      p.8: It is mentioned that CLASP1 is expressed in secretory cells of the lung. Which ones? Is CLASP1 expressed in nerves, muscle cells and/or fibroblasts of the diaphragm? These information are important according to the phenotypes described. - Co-immunolabelling experiments should be done.

      p.10: Homozygous mutants are smaller. The authors reported minor skeletal phenotypes small rib cage and delayed ossification in sternum and occipital bone. - The number of specimens analyzed was not mentioned rendering difficult to establish if these observations are important or not. Stats should be included.

      p.10: The authors established MEF used to study cell division. Multipolar spindles and additional centrosomes were detected in mutant cells. - No stats were provided to establish if the differences in numbers are significant. According to the authors, the cell division defects may explain the smaller size of mutants. The authors should check proliferation in MEF. The sentence of conclusion is not well supported according to the data presented.

      p.11: To identify the cause of the respiratory failure, the authors looked at the innervation pattern of the phrenic nerve in the diaphragm. Mutants present decreased branching but larger nerve extensions covering a wider innervated area and less neuromuscular junctions. Despite the decreased innervation of the diaphragm, its morphology is normal as well as the ultra-structure of the sarcomeres suggesting a mild phenotype rather than the cause of death of the mutants as suggested by the authors (p.20). - Diaphragmatic muscle activity should be measured to establish if the contractile activity of the diaphragm is affected. This might support the statement of the authors.

      p.12: The authors looked at the growth capacity of motor neurons and dorsal root ganglion neurons and showed a reduced growth in both cases. - How do the authors reconcile the observation made in the diaphragm in which nerve extensions are larger with the reduced growth capacity of neurons?

      p.12: The authors used cultured hippocampal neurons for imaging microtubule growth. According to the authors, the loss of CLASP1 deregulates microtubule dynamics. - No explanation was provided to justify the use of hippocampal neurons. What is a catastrophe rate? What is the justification to study this parameter? What does it tell us about microtubule dynamics?

      p.13: The authors examined lung from mutants. Mutant lungs do not float and they are collapsed at birth. However, lung morphology appears normal and myofibroblasts, ciliated cells and Club cells are present as shown by IHC labeling. No difference in proliferation and apoptosis was reported. - It would have been more informative to do BrdU/EdU immunolabeling for proliferation in order to see if differences occur in specific cell types of the lung. It is not clear why the authors have limited their IHC analysis to these three specific cell types. A complete analysis should be done.

      p.14: The authors proposed a delay in lung development according to lung morphology that appears more collapsed starting at E15.5. - Measurement of branching would allow to quantify this delay. Since cell differentiation occurs ~E16.5, analysis of the onset of cell types can also support a delay in lung development.

      p.15: Finally, the authors conclude this section by "these data support a direct role for CLASP1 in lung maturation". - Which direct role? How? This sentence appears premature according to the data presented. The authors should look at microtubule dynamics in lung cells from mutant embryos to see if a link exists between the proposed role of the protein and the lung phenotype observed.

      p.15: The authors attempted to rescue the defective lung maturation phenotype by treating pregnant females with dexamethasone at late gestational stages. Around 10% of mutants survive for more than 45 minutes to 2 hrs compared to 20-30 minutes for mutants obtained from untreated mothers (p.9). Even though it is an intriguing result, the very small numbers of "survivors" makes very difficult to reach a conclusion. - This section should be shortened.

      p.16: To determine which molecular mechanisms are responsible for the lung defect, the authors performed RNA-seq analysis on E18.5 lung specimens. The number of genes with significant differential expression was low and the highest scores were cathepsin E for the upregulated gene and chitinase-like 1 for the downregulated gene. - Are these two genes known for their role in lung development? Please describe.

      p.16: Except for the fact that Chil1 is also downregulated in mutant lungs for the H3K4 methyltransferase Mll3 gene, it is not clear why the authors compared these 2 sets of data. - Can CLASP1 and MLL3 interact together? How? Did the authors looked at the list of genes that are commonly differentially expressed? Does it provide some clues on the mechanisms? The RNA-seq data should be analyzed more deeply.

      p.16: There is also a Clasp2 gene with a more restricted expression pattern. Clasp2 mutant mice either die from hemorrhages or survive. It is not clear why the RNA-seq data of the lungs from Clasp2-/- mice are presented since no lung phenotype is mentioned for these mice. How the lack of change in Chil1 expression in Clasp2 mutant lungs is informative? - This should be clarified or the data should be removed.

      p.17: Aqp5 expression was decreased in mutant lungs as shown by RNA-seq data and RT-qPCR. However, immunolabelling with Ti does not show a decrease in the number of Type I pneumocytes (Fig. 7D). According to the data presented, it is difficult to conclude that CLASP1 is involved in Type I pneumocyte differentiation. - A cell count should be done for Figure 7D. Immunolabeling with more markers for Type I pneumocytes, including AQP5 Ab, should be performed to determine if the decreased Aqp5 RNA expression correlates with less Type I cells. GSEA signature has to be confirmed by additional analyses.

      p.17: The same comments can be made for Type II pneumocytes and SpC expression.

      p.31: The authors mentioned a role for CLASP1 in the mesenchyme. - What are the experiments and data that support this sentence?

      • How do the authors reconcile their observation of CLASP1 expression in lung secretory cells (p.8) with their conclusion of defective Type I cell differentiation (p.17)?

      Minor comment:

      Legend of Figure S4 should be for Figure S5 and vice-versa.

      Significance

      In summary: a descriptive characterization of a Clasp1 mutant mouse line but no real clue on how this microtubule-associated protein acts to produce the phenotypes observed that likely cause the death of the mutant newborns.

      This manuscript should interest researchers in lung developmental biology and cell biology,

      My expertise: mouse models, lung development, gene regulation and networks

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      Referee #3

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary

      In this manuscript, Rodríguez -Real and colleagues investigate how the centrosome may influence the repair of DNA double-stranded breaks (DSBs), building on the initial finding that relative HR frequencies (as measured using a standard split-GFP gene conversion reporter assay) are reduced in centrinone treated centrosome-depleted cells relative to mock treated controls cells. Such defects are found correlate to concordant reductions in immunofluorescence proxies for resection (RPA recruitment into foci) and upstream and downstream events in the HR cascade (BRCA1 and RAD51 recruitment, respectively), and a correlating increase in NHEJ repair of I-SceI induced repair in EJ5-like reporter assay. Taking a candidate approach to identifying which centrosome proteins link the centrosome to DSB repair regulation, the authors reveal cells depleted for subdistal appendage proteins show equivalent deviations in DSB repair reporter assays and show concordant defects in RPA recruitment, leading to the proposal that subdistal appendage proteins regulate DNA resection and thus optimal HR. Experiments are then used to show CEP170 (a subdistal appendage protein) may be phosphorylated by DDR kinases and some rescue experiments are used to support hypothesis that this phosphorylation may be involved in centrosome-DSB repair cross-talk signalling. Figure 3 experiments then show centrosome-depleted and heterozygous losses of CEP170 result in moderate sensitivities across a number of DSB-inducing treatments. Lastly meta-analyses of cancer datasets correlate low CEP170 expression to differences in cancer mutations signatures (Fig 4) and altered patient outcomes across a number of cancers (Fig 5), and propose that CEP170 - via a DSB repair repair function - may be causal in these alterations. Ultimately, the authors propose that the centrosome acts as a signalling node or 'centrosomal processing unit' (CPU) via distal appendage proteins to coordinate the signalling of DNA damage and its repair, and speculate this may link to the clinical phenotypic overlap between centrosome-related ciliopathies and DDR signalling disorders (e.g. ATR-Seckel).

      Major comments

      1. Concerning Figs 1-3, it is argued that the presented skews in pathway choice are not an indirect consequence of cell-cycle effects that accompany centrosome depletion (i.e. following centrinone treatments) or depleted centrosome factors. Indeed, S1B shows centrione depleted cell show reduced S-phase indices (where HR is most active) are concordant with increased G2(/M) cell indices, significant effects that may contribute (at least in part) to some of the reported. In the case of the reporter assays it will be difficult/impossible to normalise data vs cell cycle skew, however in the case of RAD51 IRIF frequencies and RPA recruitment, this can be done easily by monitoring the relative frequencies of these events specifically S-phase (BrDU/EdU positive) cells. This should be done if the case for indirect cell-cycle effects is to be dismissed.
      2. Related to point (1): RPA/RAD51/BRCA1 measurements made quantitatively (i.e. by QIBC or equivalent) given % IRIF positive cells can be misleading given it is completely subjective to user defined thesholds.
      3. Fig 3 - The fact that CEP170 KD decreases BRCA1 IRIF but does not increase RIF1 IRIF, is not indicative of a lack of NHEJ stimulation, nor does it infer the existence of a/some distinct mechanism stimulating NHEJ, or an 'undiscovered factor', as is stated. This is important as RIF1 IRIF are not an accepted, nor accurate surrogate marker of NHEJ pathway activity, only an indicator of RIF1 recruitment downstream of 53BP1, whose role in resection control is clear, yet whose contribution to NHEJ is highly context-specific.
      4. Is CEP170 Ser-637 an evolutionarily conserved ATM/ATR site? - Conservation, at least in mammals/vertebrates would be expected if a regulatory event in DSB pathway choice. This should be commented on with supplementary alignment included to demonstrate whether this is likely to be a universally conserved mechanism of repair regulation.
      5. Fig 3F-G: Important to show appendage localisation of wild-type and mutant CEP170 S637A/D proteins to inform whether these are functional, expressed at equivalent levels and support equal centrosome localisation intensities. Immunoblot data in support of CEP170 siRNA depletion and CEP170 transgene complementation efficiencies is missing, and needs to be included to reassure a reader the results are specific to defects in the phosphorylation (not stability/expression level/other).
      6. Do the CEP170 P'n nmutations affect its physiological centrosome functions? If separation of function is not experimentally defined, it should be at least discussed.

      Comments on interpretation and accuracy of stated conclusions:

      1. P12. - The manuscript is lacks the necessary evidence to support the section title: "CEP170 Ser647 phosphorylation is critical for HR double strand break repair", and as such I find this and related textual conclusions in the manuscript body to be inaccurate and misleading. To make this claim would require generating a cell-line knockin of the S647A mutation, preferably at the endogenous CEP170 locus (or a robust complementation system), and its utilisation to establish that standard measures of HR e.g. RAD51 recruitment, PARPi sensitivity, and/or SCE frequencies are all affected as expected in cells bearing this mutation.
      2. Abstract reads: "we identify a centriolar structure, the subdistal appendages, and a specific factor, CEP170, as the critical centrosome component involved in the regulation of recombination and resection... " - I disagree with this statement given that the study has not excluded other centrosome components/features of the centrosome in regulation of resection. Can the authors perform experiments to exclude a role for other centrosome components and substantiate the conclusion that this is a specific function of the subdistal appendages as is stated?
      3. Based on the marginal sensitivity phenotypes shown in Fig 4 for heterozygous cell-lines, it seems unlikely that CEP170 is a central player in the DSB response.
      4. The CPU model for DDR-centric role of the centrosome is premature based on the provided data, likewise the fact that a centrosome-regulated resection could explain the clinical overlap between seckel and and this model should be toned down. We probably don't need another acronym for the DDR.

      Minor comments

      • Abstract, lasts sentence needs correction: "suggesting this protein can act as a driver mutation but also..." - a protein cannot act as a driver mutation.
      • Information regarding biological replicates, sample sizes, error bars should be made more clear throughout to better represent reproducibility; e.g. n=3 {plus minus} Dt. Dev, biological replicates consisting >500 cells/nuclei per condition

      Significance

      General assessment

      In exploring for functional links between DSB repair and the centrosome, the results encompass a series of corelating results that collectively hint at a potential role for the centrosome in repair regulation. The indirect and perhaps boring explanation for the presented DSB repair imbalances is these are an indirect consequence of the inevitable cell cycle defects that accompany centrosome depletion. In S1 the authors make some effort towards dispelling this less interesting (indirect) explanation for the presented results, yet not really far enough to dismiss it as the unifying explanation. A major consequence of centrosome-loss is prolonged time spent in G2/M dues to sub-optimal spindle nucleation and assembly kinetics, and an extended transit through mitosis, defects that occur independently of the p53-dependent checkpoint to centrosome loss (in fact the defects have long been speculated precede and perhaps propagate p53 activation). Indeed, supplementary data indicates that in centrosome-depleted cells a reduction in S-phase index (when HR activity is highest) correlates to greater proportion of cells with DNA with G2(/M) content. While I agree that these cell-cycle skews are unlikely to be great enough fully account for the reductions in HR reporter and IF proxies, more targeted approaches to control for indirect cell cycle effects (one suggestion below) could strengthen the case for a direct role in repair regulation. The manuscript also falls short of a identifying a discrete mechanism that explains centrosome-repair crosstalk, and on this basis I feel some of the conclusions are too preliminary and speculative and thus the authors would benefit from being more nuanced in their conclusions. One clear example is the authors's oversimplistic attribution of DSB regulation to distal appendage components of the centrosome/cilia, yet doing so having only tested the appendage proteins on the basis of literature based exercise of protein segregation of DDR and centrosome proteins (S2A). I also find it premature to propose "CPU" models of DDR regulation, the results (while interesting) haven't gone far enough to rigorously challenge this hypothesis, and define its mechanistic basis. I also question the importance and relevance of the analyses in Figs 4-5: in the absence of scientific evidence to establish causation for low CEP170 expression in tumour mutation signature burden or patient prognosis, the presented remain correlates that might equally result from a number of phenomena unrelated to DSB repair. As such, I feel the manuscript does encompass results worthy of report that would be of interest to cell cycle and DNA repair biologists, it would be greatly improved by being more rigorous, objective and nuanced in its interpretation.

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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      In this manuscript by Rodriguez-Real et al, the authors address the contribution of the centrosome to cellular process unrelated to organizing the microtubule cytoskeleton, namely DNA repair. As many proteins contributing to the DNA damage response physically associate with centrosomes, this appears a relevant question that has been neglected so far and led to a number of studies that appeared controversial. To do so, the authors exploit a variety of tissue culture models that are well established in the fields of centrosomes and DNA repair, including U2OS and RPE1 cells, exposed to perturbations promoting DNA damage (such as ionizing radiation or pharmacologic perturbation of DNA stability) in conjunction with siRNA mediated depletion of candidate centrosomal proteins., followed by the visualization of repair events either using fluorescent reporters, or visualizing endogenous repair foci by immunofluorescence. On this basis, the authors propose that a discrete centrosomal sub-structure, namely sub-distal appendages and the CEP170 protein therein concur to promote a particular nuclear DNA repair process, namely homologous recombination.

      The manuscript suffers of two main limitation:

      1. the authors provide no mechanistic understanding of how CEP170, a protein that resides at centriolar subdistal appendages and shows no nuclear translocation upon DNA damage, concurs to regulate processes in the nucleus. The fact that all reported phenomena appear to be independent of microtubules suggests that neither the LINC complex nor the precise position of the centrosome in the vicinity of nuclear pore complexes contribute to the reported phenomena.
      2. some of the experimental perturbations performed in the manuscript might elicit the reported phenotypes due to spurious effects on cellular processes that have not been considered with sufficient caution.

      Given that uncovering the mechanism underlying the contribution of CEP170 to homologous recombination might prove very demanding, my comments will focus primarily on the second point.

      Major comments:

      The centriolar depletion using centrinone is known to impinge on cell proliferation in p53 WT cells. Thus, I am not convinced that the data shown in Figure S1B and S1C will sufficiently document that the observed unbalance between HDR and NHEJ are not simply reflecting a different cell cycling speed/behavior. Moreover, it would be important to address whether centrinone or depletion of CEP170 (an essential gene, according to the authors!) will trigger DNA damage by themselves. In fact, even a small extent of chronic genotoxic stress caused by the perturbations used in the manuscript might explain the reported differential proficiency of HDR.

      Minor comments:

      It is a pity that CEP170 is not amenable to functional dissection using a complete knockout. The fact that in PMID: 27818179 a complete knockout of CEP128 has been achieved, suggests however that subdistal appendage mediated DNA repair is not the essential process in itself. As the authors employ other cell lines stemming from the same laboratory, they could consider acquiring CEP128 KO to complement their own experiments.

      The proposal that CEP170 phosphorylation of by ATM/ATR upon DNA damage might require SDA localization of the protein is plausible, yet not circumstantiated by any experimental evidence. If the authors could monitor the phosphorylation of the endogenous CEP170 protein in WT vs CEP128 KO cells (phosphor-specific antibody, MS-based proteomics or simply "phos-tag" gels), this could provide a first spark towards a mechanistic understanding of the reported phenomenon.

      The entire Figure 4 is based on quantifications of clonogenic potential.

      1. it would be helpful if the data were accompanied by images displaying representative crystal violet stained dishes.
      2. clonogenic potential potential is discussed as a mere readout of cell survival, yet a combination between survival and proliferation concur to the reported differential clonogenic potential

      Odf2 contribution to both DAs and SDAs: while Odf2 has been initially proposed to be necessary for the assembly of both types of appendages, its contribution to distal appendages has been disputed by Tanos et al using siRNA (PMID: 23348840), also confirmed by our group using CRISPR (unpublished). Thus, the role of Odf2 in SDA assembly appears more crucial than for DA assembly.

      CEP164 contribution to ATM/ATR activation: this has been disputed in this paper by the Morrison lab (PMID: 26966185). Thus, a cautionary note should be mentioned when referring to this concept.

      Significance

      Taken together, this manuscript addresses the contribution of the centrosome to DNA repair. This is in itself a very interesting topic with the potential to attract the interest of both cell/molecular biologists as well as cancer researchers. The major advance strength is represented by pinpointing a specific centriolar substructure, namely subdistal appendages, in the control of HDR. CEP170 had been previously shown to be target of phosphorylation by ATM/R and the present study highlights that the abovementioned phosphorylation is not a mere passenger event during DNA repair, but that potentially reflects a decisive event informing the repair pathway of choice. However, several experiments have alternative explanations/interpretations and no understanding of the underlying mechanism is provided.

      The expertise of this reviewer is the study of cell cycle regulation and on the centrosome structure/function.

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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary

      Rodríguez-Real, Huertas and colleagues here explore the roles of centrosomes in DNA damage responses, focussing on DNA repair activities. They show that centrosome depletion by PLK4 inhibition leads to reduced levels of homologous recombination and increased nonhomologous end-joining, along with altered level of nuclear focus formation by DNA repair proteins. Knockdown of genes that encode components of centriolar subdistal appendages (SDAs) cause reduced levels of RPA foci, with CRISPR-generated CEP170 heterozygotes also showing defects in focus formation. Knockdown of CEP170 impairs homologous recombination, although NHEJ activities are unaffected. Some increase in sensitivity to DNA damaging agents is seen in CEP170- or centriole-deficient cells, albeit with a modest effect size. CEP170 status is shown to affect mutational signatures and patient prognosis in different cancer samples.

      While the experiments are generally well-presented and controlled, the effects seen are not large, so that the the conclusions that the authors draw are not entirely substantiated by the data presented, even without the suggestion of a mechanism. There are several additional experiments and clarifications that I consider necessary to provide appropriate support for the phenomenon.

      Major points

      1. The lack of cell cycle arrest or phenotype in the U2OS cells after a week's treatment with centrinone is somewhat surprising, given their p53 status. The initial description of centrinone showed a distinct impact on U2OS proliferation, albeit after 2 weeks' treatment (although the present paper shows robust impact on centriole numbers after only 1 week in centrinone). It would be useful to know the percentage of mitotic cells, or if there is any increased cell death observed at this stage of treatment.
      2. In the I-SceI assays, were transduction efficiencies or apoptosis within the experiment impacted by centrinone treatment? If not, it would be useful to state that this was examined and that there were no confounding effects; having only normalised data does not allow the reader to exclude these potential confounding factors.
      3. The authors present binary data for a given type of nuclear focus (positive or negative for RPA/ BRCA1/ RAD51), while the supporting images show altered numbers/ intensities. For example, the BRCA1 signals shown in Fig. 3D are less readily distinguished than they are in Fig. 1D. These data should be reconsidered: it is possible that these observations reflect different kinetics of focus formation, rather than a change in IRIF formation capacity. Numbers and a timecourse should be provided, with details of how these are quantitated provided in the Methods.
      4. Are the BRCA1 and RAD51 results seen with centrinone treatment of U2OS cells recapitulated in the Saos-2 and RPE1 lines?
      5. Some additional analysis is needed of the extent to which cells are sensitised to DNA damaging treatments by CEP170 deficiency or centrinone treatment. It should be confirmed that these experiments were performed in biological triplicate, rather than a technical triplicate (within a single experiment); if this is not the case, these experiments should be done in triplicate. Analysing p53-deficient hTERT-RPE1 clones, Kumar et al. (NAR Cancer 2020 PMID: 33385162) showed <10% survival with 100 ng/ml NCS. Hustedt et al. (Genes Dev 2019 PMID: 31467087) showed just over 50% survival with 10 nM CPT treatment, although their data for IR were comparable to the current study. Given the wide variation that these assays seem to incur, the extent to which a ≈20% difference in clonogenic survival is biologically significant may be limited. A rescue of the CEP170 siRNA, and/ or washout in the centrinone experiment would make these data more convincing. The knockdown of CEP170 in Figure 4 should be correctly labelled (not as CEP170+/-); given that the authors have generated CEP170 heterozygotes in Figure 2, this is potentially confusing.
      6. Direct data for the (centrosomal) phosphorylation of CEP170 are limited; it has not been demonstrated that the S637A mutants are fully functional in terms of the centrosome functions of CEP170, so that the conclusion regarding a requirement for centrosomal CEP170 phosphorylation is not sufficiently supported by the available data. The CEP170-dependent changes in RPA focus positive cell percentages shown in Figure 3 are not very marked. The relevant sections should be revised, or the authors should include additional experiments showing directly a phosphorylation of CEP170.
      7. It is difficult to interpret the mutational spectrum data and their significance. These should be compared with data for mutations in NDEL1 mutant cells, and/or other SDA components.
      8. The Kaplan-Meier curves data are intriguing, but their interpretation is highly speculative, given that there are no data on treatment groups included in this study. It is unclear whether other genes that affect SDAs might also impact survival (in the same, or different cancers), so the presentation of those patient groups where CEP170 status impacted survival seems selective, given the ubiquity of HR and centrosomes. These data would be better included as Supplemental information.
      9. The independence of p53 status/ responsiveness of the system is a crucial aspect of this study. Sir et al. (JCB 2013 PMID: 24297747) showed no DNA repair defect in centrosome-deficient chicken DT40 cells. This paper is very relevant to the current study and should be discussed. Similarly, the work by Lambrus et al (JCB 2015 PMID: 26150389) should also be considered.

      Minor points

      1. References for the RPE1 TP53/ SAS6 mutant cell lines should be provided (or controls for their generation presented).
      2. Fig S1K should correct its x-axis to reflect the time intervals correctly.
      3. Fig 2D should show blow-ups of the centrosomes.
      4. To avoid any potential confusion, it would be helpful to indicate in the Figure proper which cells are used for the various analyses.
      5. The 'basal side' of the centriole is not a standard term- this should be clarified. This may be confusing, given the role of centrioles in the basal body.
      6. The consideration of Seckel syndrome seems somewhat speculative at this stage in the exploration of this phenomenon.

      Referees cross commenting I think the comments from Reviewers #2 and #3 are reasonable and justified; there is good convergence between the comments that we all made and I have no issues to raise in this cross-commentary.

      Significance

      Strengths: Much previous work linking centrosomes and DNA damage responses has addressed cell cycle and checkpoint roles of the centrosome, so that a direct role in (nuclear) DNA repair is intriguing. Limitations:The present study shows a relatively moderate impact of centrosome defects on DNA repair, without a clear mechanism. There are some technical details that should be addressed. The relatively limited sensitization to DNA damaging treatments caused by centrosome deficiency questions the biological significance of the phenomenon.

      Advance: The current study presents some new findings that potentially show DNA repair defects resulting from the loss of centrioles (or SDA proteins). This has not been demonstrated to date.

      Audience: The idea of subdistal appendage components contributing to homologous recombinational repair of DNA damage is of potential interest to several fields, ranging from basic centrosome biology through translational to clinical cancer research.

      Reviewer's expertise: basic/ cell biology.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      General Statements:

      We were very pleased and appreciative of the reviewer’s comments, and constructive suggestions for improving the manuscript. In response to their suggestions, we have added new text to better emphasize the importance of the question, the novelty of our approach, the significance of the results, and the potential for future discovery,

      To summarize our key findings, we have identified 3,500 instances where – despite their shared ancestry - only one of two paralogous proteins undergoes a specific post-translational modification. By comparing adjoining sequences across 1012 isolates of the same yeast species, we determined that sequence conservation near sites of modification is greater than at sites that are not modified. We postulate that these differences in sequence are partly responsible for the differences in post-translational modifications, and that differences in modification allow duplicated proteins to be differentially regulated. These differences may account for their retention after 100M years of evolution.

      Our analysis is clearly distinct from earlier investigations. In particular, we use new and substantially larger proteomics datasets reporting multiple types of post-translational modifications, new tools to analyze protein structure (AlphaFold), as well as new and expanded protein interactome datasets. Perhaps most importantly, we rely entirely on in-species sequence conservation data, with particular emphasis on duplicated proteins. Finally, we developed a custom algorithm (CoSMoS.c.) and web site that quantifies sequence conservation, in an automated fashion, across all 1012 unique strain isolates.

      We propose that in-species comparisons of paralogs will prove to be more reliable than cross-species comparisons of orthologous proteins and/or in-species comparisons of non-homologous proteins. Comparison of paralogs is powerful because they are likely to have similar structures and functions, due to their shared evolutionary origin. Comparison within a single species is powerful because it avoids non-biological sources of uncertainty, such as potential alignment errors and any accompanying structural differences. Thus, by comparing unique modifications in closely-related gene products and across closely-related strain isolates, investigators using CoSMoS.c. will be better able to predict new enzyme-substrate relationships, identify new motifs for post-translational modifications, and prioritize mechanistic investigations of those modifications.

      All of the reviewers asked that we explain the motivation for the design choice, compare our design with those used in earlier studies, add new controls for the effects of protein abundance, and provide examples of how our novel approach may be useful to investigators who study post-translational modifications. We are pleased to report that we were able to address all of these issues with revised text, additional references, two new control experiments, and real-world examples of individual paralog-paralog comparisons that have been useful in the past.

      Finally, we have changed the title to: Differential modification____ of protein ____paralogs reveals conserved sequence determinants of post-translational ____modification

      And we have changed the running title to: In-species evolution of protein modification sites

      Reply to the Reviewers:

      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)): *

      Summary: This paper reports bioinformatics analysis of population variation in PTM sites in paralogs from the yeast whole-genome-duplication. If I understand it correctly, the main finding is that modified sites show less population variation than paralagous unmodified sites. The results are largely in line with what is expected based on previous studies, though the authors do not present their results in that context.

      Major comments:

      1. The study benefits from two clever design choices:

      First, comparison of sites between paralogs is a very powerful test for an evolutionary hypothesis because paralogous sites are expected to have relatively similar structural context. Second, use of within species polymorphism data is much less susceptible to alignment errors that can be an issue for longer evolutionary comparisons.

      However, these design choices are not discussed or motivated by the authors. Nor are they compared to the designs of previous studies. Examples of previous studies (PMID: 22588506, PMID: 21273632, PMID: 20594336,PMID: 20594336, PMID: 24465218, PMID: 22889910, PMID: 20368267, PMID: 28054638)** *

      We were very pleased and appreciative of the reviewer’s comments, and constructive suggestions for improving the manuscript. We have added nearly all references suggested by the reviewer, as well as new text describing____ the central findings of these papers, as follows:

      ”Most importantly, and in contrast with previous studies, we restricted our analysis to modified and unmodified pairs of paralogous proteins. This represents a very powerful test for the hypothesis because paralogs have a shared evolutionary history and are expected to have similar secondary structures. Moreover, the use of within-species polymorphism data is much less susceptible to the alignment errors that often occur with longer evolutionary comparisons.”

      and

      “Our analysis is clearly distinct from - and complementary to - earlier investigations of post-translational modifications in yeasts. … Our analysis builds on these foundational studies, by considering new and substantially larger proteomics datasets, multiple additional types of post-translational modifications, new and sophisticated models of protein structure, large-scale kinase interactome data, and in-species sequence conservation data – with particular emphasis on duplicated proteins.

      We propose that in-species comparisons of paralogs will prove to be more reliable than cross-species comparisons of orthologous proteins, or in-species comparisons of non-homologous proteins. Comparison of paralogs is powerful because they are likely to have similar structures and functions, due to their shared evolutionary origin (56, 58, 68). Comparison within a single species is powerful because it allows us to avoid important non-biological sources of uncertainty, such as potential alignment errors and unknown structural or functional differences.”

        1. One essential control that needs to be added is how much of the effect the authors observe can be explained by protein abundance. In yeast, protein abundance is strongly negatively correlated with evolutionary rate, and is strongly positively correlated with identification of PTMs in MS and other assays (extensively discussed in some of the previous studies I listed above). The authors need to assess whether their findings are due to the slow evolution of highly expressed proteins, and the detection bias for these proteins in PTM identification experiments. As far as I could tell this was not discussed by the authors.*

      This point was also raised by Reviewer #2. We have added additional text stating that detection of PTMs by mass spectrometry is correlated with protein abundance.____ In addition, and as suggested by the reviewers, we have now done a control experiment using cross-study conservation of PTMs and limiting our comparison to proteins of similar abundance. By both methods, and as detailed below, we were able to confirm our original findings:

      “We then reanalyzed our data to account for possible effects of protein abundance, which in cross species comparisons was observed to negatively correlate with evolutionary rate and positively correlate with modification detection by mass spectrometry (39). Accordingly, we restricted our in-species analysis to a subset of 270 paralog pairs that have similar ( 100 instances each of phosphorylation, ubiquitylation and succinylation, where the target and paralog have the same amino acid, but only the target is modified. Even with this restricted dataset, we obtained similar results for all three types of analysis (Dataset S9). We also considered the potential effect of false positives and false negatives among the reported modification sites. False positives can result from ambiguous assignments, as might arise through misidentification of modified sites within peptides that contain multiple potential sites of modification. False negatives can result from difficulties in detecting modifications in poorly expressed proteins (39), or an overly strict reliance on high confidence sites. We then further restricted the data to only include modifications identified in multiple studies. After applying this additional filter, we were left with > 100 instances of phosphorylation. Once again, we obtained similar results for Symmetric Average Score and One-sided Average Score analysis, but not for Chemical Similarity Average Score, which is further restricted by splitting the data into five chemical categories (Dataset S10).”

      • 3.A major weakness of the paper is its lack of focus. It includes a rambling historical introduction and discussion that omits discussion of the relevant recent research directly related to the questions at hand. For example, the paper describes historical work on phosphorylase, but gives not a single example of a paralog pair with a polymorphic PTM site identified in their study. The authors introduce gene duplication in a very general way, even though several papers have focused specifically on evolution of protein regulation in paralogs (e.g., PMID: 20080574, PMID: 27003913, PMID: 25474245) The paper of Nguyen Ba et al. 2014 (PMID: 25474245) seems especially relevant, as in addition to perfoming a genome-wide analysis, their abstract reads "We examine changes in constraints on known regulatory sequences and show that for the Rck1/Rck2, Fkh1/Fkh2, Ace2/Swi5 paralogs, they are associated with previously characterized differences in posttranslational regulation." It seems that the results of that study could be directly compared to the analysis performed here.*

      This point was also raised by Reviewer 2. At the suggestion of the reviewers, we have moved or removed discussion of these foundational studies of PTM mapping and added discussion of well-characterized examples of paralog pairs with polymorphic PTM sites, based on the references provided, as follows:

      “We propose that in-species comparisons of paralogs will prove to be more reliable than cross-species comparisons of orthologous proteins, or in-species comparisons of non-homologous proteins. Comparison of paralogs is powerful because they are likely to have similar structures and functions, due to their shared evolutionary origin (56, 58, 68). Comparison within a single species is powerful because it allows us to avoid important non-biological sources of uncertainty, such as potential alignment errors and unknown structural or functional differences. This is supported by a small number of prior studies, which compared four sets of paralogous proteins in yeast - Rck1 v. Rck2, Fkh1 v. Fkh2, Ace2 v. Swi5 (68), and Boi1 v. Boi2 (58), and concluded that divergence in short linear motifs is likely responsible for differences in phosphorylation. While paralogs are far less common in other organisms, a similar conclusion emerged from a comparison of predicted sites of phosphorylation in mammalian p53, p63 and p73 (69).

      Our analysis of differentially-modified pairs of paralogous proteins revealed that the most common modifications – phosphorylation, ubiquitylation and acylation but not N-glycosylation – occur within regions of high sequence conservation. Further studies will benefit from the availability of our search algorithm CoSMoS.c.. For example, when studying a particular protein kinase, CoSMoS.c. can be used to identify specific motifs near potentially modified serines, threonines and tyrosines (Table 2). When studying a particular substrate of ubiquitylation, CoSMoS.c. can be used to prioritize conserved versus non-conserved sequences flanking potentially modified lysines. For rare modifications, CoSMoS.c. can also be used to locate highly conserved regions as the starting points for finding new sequence motifs. Thus, by comparing unique modifications in closely-related gene products and across closely-related strain isolates, we can prioritize mechanistic investigations of modifications that are likely to have functional importance, to identify recognition motifs for specific modifying enzymes, and to better predict new enzyme-substrate relationships.”

      *Reviewer #1 (Significance (Required)):

      The significance is hard to assess because the research is not given proper context and motivation.

      I believe the study could be of interest to research studying cell signalling and its evolution, as well as those interested in gene family diversification. However, as written, no specific examples are given or clear hypotheses tested, making the paper seem largely descriptive.

      My keywords: molecular evolution, signalling, intrinsically disordered regions, computational biology

      *

      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)): *

      Summary

      The authors of this work study how S. cerevisiae paralogue pairs are differentially modified with respect to five major PTM classes: phosphorylation, ubiquitination, mono-acetylation, N-glycosylation, and succinylation. Emphasis is placed on paralogue pairs where a modification is found in only one of the two paralogues at homologous positions. A conservation analysis is then performed across 1011 S. cerevisiae isolates to check for differences in conservation between the modified target and its unmodified paralogue. The authors claim that, for most of the PTM classes, modified targets tend to be more conserved than their unmodified paralogues. Phosphorylation sites between paralogue pairs were also compared using AlphaFold2 and a database of kinase interactions (YeastKID), revealing differential interactions between paralogues but no significant structural differences. *

      We were very pleased and appreciative of the reviewer’s comments, and constructive suggestions for improving the manuscript.____ * *

      *Major:

      1) A major issue with this work is that the problem of 'false negatives' for PTM detection is never adequately addressed or controlled for. As the authors allude to in the manuscript, the number of PTM sites detected is likely far below the number that exists and this is especially a problem for the less well characterised PTM classes. How then can the authors be confident that an 'unmodified' site is truly unmodified and not just undetected? The authors can refer to Freschi et al., 2011 (MSB) for a method that controls for the false negative (FN) PTM detection rate by comparing cross-study conservation with cross-study reproducibility. *

      * 2) The second point follows closely from the first. The issue is that MS-based PTM detection is generally biased towards abundant proteins, and protein abundance also correlates strongly with evolutionary rate, with more abundant proteins tending to have higher conservation. Taken together, these two relationships could explain the observation that the modified paralogue tends to be more conserved than the 'unmodified' paralogue. The authors should try and control for the effect of protein abundance on the results observed; for example, by checking if the results/conclusions change when restricting the analysis to paralogue pairs with similar abundances. *

      * 3) Alongside false negatives, there is the cognate issue of false positives and mislocalised PTM sites (see Lanz et al., 2021, EMBO Reports). If possible, the authors should check to see if their conclusions change when restricting the analysis to high-confidence PTM sites identified from multiple sources and/or validated by low throughput experimental assays.*

      __This point was also raised by Reviewer #1. To address the concern, we have now done a new control analysis, one that uses only those modifications identified in multiple studies and comparing only proteins of similar (“We then reanalyzed our data to account for possible effects of protein abundance, which in cross species comparisons was observed to negatively correlate with evolutionary rate and positively correlate with modification detection by mass spectrometry (39). Accordingly, we restricted our in-species analysis to a subset of 270 paralog pairs that have similar ( 100 instances each of phosphorylation, ubiquitylation and succinylation, where the target and paralog have the same amino acid, but only the target is modified. Even with this restricted dataset, we obtained similar results for all three types of analysis (Dataset S9). We also considered the potential effect of false positives and false negatives among the reported modification sites. False positives can result from ambiguous assignments, as might arise through misidentification of modified sites within peptides that contain multiple potential sites of modification. False negatives can result from difficulties in detecting modifications in poorly expressed proteins (39), or an overly strict reliance on high confidence sites. We then further restricted the data to only include modifications identified in multiple studies. After applying this additional filter, we were left with > 100 instances of phosphorylation. Once again, we obtained similar results for Symmetric Average Score and One-sided Average Score analysis, but not for Chemical Similarity Average Score, which is further restricted by splitting the data into five chemical categories (Dataset S10).”

      4) The authors define conservation here using 1011 wild and domesticated yeast isolates within one species (S. cerevisiae). While this is clearly valuable information, this reviewer wonders why orthologues from closely related species were not also leveraged to assess the evolutionary rate, as is traditionally done for studies on PTM evolution? Is there a strong rationale for this? Using more distantly-related genomes could give more statistical power for the detection of weak differences in selective constraint between paralogues.

      We believe that a major strength of our study is the reliance on____ in-species sequence conservation data – with particular emphasis on duplicated proteins. To better emphasize this point, we have added new text as follows:

      ”Most importantly, and in contrast with previous studies, we restricted our analysis to modified and unmodified pairs of paralogous proteins. This represents a very powerful test for the hypothesis because paralogs have a shared evolutionary history and are expected to have similar secondary structures. Moreover, the use of in-species polymorphism data is much less susceptible to the alignment errors that often occur with longer evolutionary comparisons.”

      and

      “We propose that in-species comparisons of paralogs will prove to be more reliable than cross-species comparisons of orthologous proteins, or in-species comparisons of non-homologous proteins. Comparison of paralogs is powerful because they are likely to have similar structures and functions, due to their shared evolutionary origin (56, 58, 68). Comparison within a single species is powerful because it allows us to avoid important non-biological sources of uncertainty, such as potential alignment errors and unknown structural or functional differences.”

      *Minor:

      1) Both the Introduction and Discussion describe PTMs and the evolution of gene duplication in very general terms. However, literature concerning the evolution of PTMs and specifically the evolution of PTMs following gene duplication has been largely ignored. These studies give the most relevant context to this work and should be described and cited. Freschi et al., 2011 (Molecular Systems Biology) and Ba et al., 2014 (PloS Computational Biology) are particularly relevant. *

      We have added references suggested by the reviewer, as well as new text describing the central findings of these papers, as follows:

      “Our analysis is clearly distinct from - and complementary to - earlier investigations of post-translational modifications in yeasts. Previous analysis showed that duplicated proteins in Saccharomyces cerevisiae are more likely to be phosphorylated, and to have a greater number of phosphorylation sites, than non-duplicated proteins (58). The difference persisted when controlling for differences in protein abundance, coverage, essentiality, positioning within protein interaction networks and assembly into multi-protein complexes (58). When compared with a yeast species that diverged before the whole genome duplication event, it appears that the majority of phosphorylation sites in paralogs have either been lost or gained, with a strong bias toward losses (56). Subsequent cross-species comparisons noted a high degree of sequence conservation near sites of phosphorylation and other types of modification in yeasts (49, 59-65). The relationship was strongest for phosphosites with known function (49, 50, 61). A focused study of 249 unique high-confidence phosphorylation sites, targeted by 7 protein kinases in S. cerevisiae, confirmed that regions flanking sites of phosphorylation are significantly constrained, in comparison with other closely related yeast species (61). A similar relationship exists for sites phosphorylated by the cyclin-dependent protein kinase Cdk1 (66), and was the basis for predicting novel sites of phosphorylation by the cAMP-dependent protein kinase (67). Our analysis builds on these foundational studies, by considering new and substantially larger proteomics datasets, multiple additional types of post-translational modifications, new and sophisticated models of protein structure, large-scale kinase interactome data, and in-species sequence conservation data – with particular emphasis on duplicated proteins.

      We propose that in-species comparisons of paralogs will prove to be more reliable than cross-species comparisons of orthologous proteins, or in-species comparisons of non-homologous proteins. Comparison of paralogs is powerful because they are likely to have similar structures and functions, due to their shared evolutionary origin (56, 58, 68). Comparison within a single species is powerful because it allows us to avoid important non-biological sources of uncertainty, such as potential alignment errors and unknown structural or functional differences. This is supported by a small number of prior studies, which compared four sets of paralogous proteins in yeast - Rck1 v. Rck2, Fkh1 v. Fkh2, Ace2 v. Swi5 (68), and Boi1 v. Boi2 (58), and concluded that divergence in short linear motifs is likely responsible for differences in phosphorylation. While paralogs are far less common in other organisms, a similar conclusion emerged from a comparison of predicted sites of phosphorylation in mammalian p53, p63 and p73 (69).”

      *2) While I enjoyed to a limited extent the historical perspective on PTM discovery, there is far too much text given to this overall and the writing should be made more concise by removing excessive detail. This is especially the case for the Results section, where the emphasis should be on the analysis performed by the authors. *

      This point was also raised by Reviewer 1. At the suggestion of the reviewers, we have moved or removed discussion of these foundational studies of PTM mapping and added discussion of well-characterized examples of paralog pairs with polymorphic PTM sites, based on the references provided, as detailed above.

      *3) Description of the methodology should be reviewed for language and clarity. In particular, the authors should explain explicitly the meaning of new terms such as 'pairing structure' and how this may confer an 'advantage / disadvantage' to target proteins -- wording that this reviewer found especially confusing and unnecessary. The authors should also be explicit about how the distributions for each test are constructed; the current wording sometimes gives the impression that a distribution is derived from a single target or paralogue instead of being derived from a set of modified targets and the corresponding set of unmodified paralogues. Another confusion is that the Distribution Mean Test is contrasted with the Paralog Pairing Test in Fig S8 and yet on page 15 the Distribution Mean Test is described as 'paired' test on page 15 even though from the description the test seems unpaired? *

      We are now more explicit about how the distributions for each test are constructed, and we have clarified the meaning of the terms 'pairing structure', 'advantage / disadvantage' and ‘Distribution Mean Test’, as follows:

      “We then performed two statistical tests: the Distribution Mean Test, which determines whether the mean of the distribution of target protein conservation scores (that is, the mean conservation score for all modified target proteins) is significantly larger than that of the unmodified paralogs, and the Paralog Pairing Test, which tests whether the pairing structure confers an advantage for the target proteins. Figure 2 presents two possible pairing structures (panels A and C) and how these can advantage (panels A and B) or disadvantage (panels C and D) target proteins...”

      “In this instance we applied a one-sided, paired Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon Test (100), which determines whether the target protein conservation score distribution is significantly larger than the unmodified paralog conservation score distribution, without assuming that they follow a normal distribution. We used the paired test because the comparison is between the means of paired observations that have a relationship between the two groups (modified target and unmodified paralogs). Hereafter we refer to this as Distribution Mean Test.”

      4) Following on from point 2) in the 'major' section above, the authors could consider normalising the conservation scores within a protein to control for the effect of protein abundance and other potential confounders acting at the protein level.

      We have added additional text stating that detection of PTMs by mass spectrometry is correlated with protein abundance.____ In addition, and as suggested by the reviewers, we have now done a control experiment using cross-study conservation of PTMs and limiting our comparison to proteins of similar abundance. By both methods, and as detailed below, we were able to confirm our original findings:

      “We then reanalyzed our data to account for possible effects of protein abundance, which in cross species comparisons was observed to negatively correlate with evolutionary rate and positively correlate with modification detection by mass spectrometry (39). Accordingly, we restricted our in-species analysis to a subset of 270 paralog pairs that have similar ( 100 instances each of phosphorylation, ubiquitylation and succinylation, where the target and paralog have the same amino acid, but only the target is modified. Even with this restricted dataset, we obtained similar results for all three types of analysis (Dataset S9). We also considered the potential effect of false positives and false negatives among the reported modification sites. False positives can result from ambiguous assignments, as might arise through misidentification of modified sites within peptides that contain multiple potential sites of modification. False negatives can result from difficulties in detecting modifications in poorly expressed proteins (39), or an overly strict reliance on high confidence sites. We then further restricted the data to only include modifications identified in multiple studies. After applying this additional filter, we were left with > 100 instances of phosphorylation. Once again, we obtained similar results for Symmetric Average Score and One-sided Average Score analysis, but not for Chemical Similarity Average Score, which is further restricted by splitting the data into five chemical categories (Dataset S10).”

      *5) For the analysis of motifs, departure from the BLOSUM62 expectation may just reflect the fact that many of these PTMs fall in disordered regions - which have distinct amino acid propensities -- whereas matrices like BLOSUM62 were constructed mostly from ordered protein regions. *

      We have modified the Materials and Methods section to reflect this alternative, as follows:

      “If the observed changes differ substantially from expectation (BLOSUM62), this suggests the presence of selection pressure and functional importance. This might also arise from distinct amino acid propensities when comparing ordered protein regions, from which the BLOSUM62 matrices were constructed, and disordered regions, where most modifications are likely to occur. This is unlikely to impact our results, as we are comparing structurally similar paralogous proteins. In addition, we are using multiple score algorithms to support our conclusions.”

      6) The analysis of sequence motifs could be extended by scoring phosphosites with yeast position weight matrices (PWMs) for protein kinases and comparing the results between modified targets and their unmodified paralogues. This can help distinguish true positive and false negative modification differences. See Freschi et al., 2011 (Molecular Systems Biology).

      We have performed this analysis according to the reviewer’s suggestion and added new text to the Results, as follows:

      “Finally, in an initial effort to match sites of phosphorylation with protein kinases, we used the position-weight matrices (PWMs) developed by Mok et al. (56, 57). That analysis determined phosphorylation site selectivity for 61 of the 122 kinases in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and proposed empirically-derived PWMs that enable the assignment of candidate protein kinases to known sites of phosphorylation (56, 57). We applied the PWMs to our dataset, which contains sites where one of the two proteins is known to be phosphorylated and the amino acid residue is the same in both. From this dataset, we kept 190 paralogous pairs where each protein contains at least one such phosphorylation site, so that both proteins would have kinase interactions to be compared. Using the PWMs from (57), we assigned the kinase that most likely corresponds to each phosphorylation site, as implemented in (56). Out of the 190 paralogous pairs, 130 interacted with different kinases. Together, these results indicate that most kinases regulate one or the other of the protein paralogs. They suggest further that differential modifications reported here may be the result of differential interactions with modifying enzymes.”

      *Reviewer #2 (Significance (Required)):

      This work is potentially of specialist interest to researchers studying the evolution of PTMs. While the evolution of phosphorylation following gene duplication has been studied previously (Freschi et al 2011, MSB), this work considers other PTM classes and takes advantage of a much larger data set. Potentially, clear examples of paralogue PTM divergence could be used as a basis for follow-up experiments. However, the web-server as it is now is designed to facilitate the easy analysis of a single protein at a time and not comparisons across paralogue pairs.

      *

      We have added new text to better emphasize the importance of the question, the novelty of our approach, the significance of the results, and the potential for future discovery, as follows:

      “Post-translational modifications are critical functional elements within proteins, and are therefore expected to be conserved in evolution. Here, we have identified several thousand instances where, despite a shared ancestry, only one of two paralogous proteins undergoes a specific post-translational modification. We also developed a custom algorithm that quantifies sequence conservation, in an automated fashion, across 1012 unique strain isolates. By comparing adjoining sequences in multiple isolates of the same species, we determined that sequence conservation near sites of modification is greater than at sites that are not modified. In addition, many of the modifications were associated with characteristic sequence elements nearby. We postulate that these differences in sequence conservation are partly responsible for differences in post-translational modifications, that differences in post-translational modifications allow duplicated proteins to be differentially regulated, and these differences may account for their retention after 100M years of evolution.

      Our analysis is clearly distinct from - and complementary to - earlier investigations of post-translational modifications in yeasts. Previous analysis showed that duplicated proteins in Saccharomyces cerevisiae are more likely to be phosphorylated, and to have a greater number of phosphorylation sites, than non-duplicated proteins (58). The difference persisted when controlling for differences in protein abundance, coverage, essentiality, positioning within protein interaction networks and assembly into multi-protein complexes (58). When compared with a yeast species that diverged before the whole genome duplication event, it appears that the majority of phosphorylation sites in paralogs have either been lost or gained, with a strong bias toward losses (56). Subsequent cross-species comparisons noted a high degree of sequence conservation near sites of phosphorylation and other types of modification in yeasts (49, 59-65). The relationship was strongest for phosphosites with known function (49, 50, 61). A focused study of 249 unique high-confidence phosphorylation sites, targeted by 7 protein kinases in S. cerevisiae, confirmed that regions flanking sites of phosphorylation are significantly constrained, in comparison with other closely related yeast species (61). A similar relationship exists for sites phosphorylated by the cyclin-dependent protein kinase Cdk1 (66), and was the basis for predicting novel sites of phosphorylation by the cAMP-dependent protein kinase (67). Our analysis builds on these foundational studies, by considering new and substantially larger proteomics datasets, multiple additional types of post-translational modifications, new and sophisticated models of protein structure, large-scale kinase interactome data, and in-species sequence conservation data – with particular emphasis on duplicated proteins.

      We propose that in-species comparisons of paralogs will prove to be more reliable than cross-species comparisons of orthologous proteins, or in-species comparisons of non-homologous proteins. Comparison of paralogs is powerful because they are likely to have similar structures and functions, due to their shared evolutionary origin (56, 58, 68). Comparison within a single species is powerful because it allows us to avoid important non-biological sources of uncertainty, such as potential alignment errors and unknown structural or functional differences. This is supported by a small number of prior studies, which compared four sets of paralogous proteins in yeast - Rck1 v. Rck2, Fkh1 v. Fkh2, Ace2 v. Swi5 (68), and Boi1 v. Boi2 (58), and concluded that divergence in short linear motifs is likely responsible for differences in phosphorylation. While paralogs are far less common in other organisms, a similar conclusion emerged from a comparison of predicted sites of phosphorylation in mammalian p53, p63 and p73 (69).

      Our analysis of differentially-modified pairs of paralogous proteins revealed that the most common modifications – phosphorylation, ubiquitylation and acylation but not N-glycosylation – occur within regions of high sequence conservation. Further studies will benefit from the availability of our search algorithm CoSMoS.c.. For example, when studying a particular protein kinase, CoSMoS.c. can be used to identify specific motifs near potentially modified serines, threonines and tyrosines (Table 2). When studying a particular substrate of ubiquitylation, CoSMoS.c. can be used to prioritize conserved versus non-conserved sequences flanking potentially modified lysines. For rare modifications, CoSMoS.c. can also be used to locate highly conserved regions as the starting points for finding new sequence motifs. Thus, by comparing unique modifications in closely-related gene products and across closely-related strain isolates, we can prioritize mechanistic investigations of modifications that are likely to have functional importance, to identify recognition motifs for specific modifying enzymes, and to better predict new enzyme-substrate relationships.”

      __In addition, and in response to the reviewer’s suggestion, we are currently expanding the web site to facilitate comparisons across paralogue pairs. ____

      __

      Currently, the major problems stated above 1) correction for the problem of false negatives, and 2) correction for the confounding effects of protein abundance need to be addressed before the results can be fully interpreted and evaluated.

      As detailed above under Points 1-3,____ we have now done a control experiment using cross-study conservation of PTMs and limiting our comparison to proteins of similar abundance. By both methods, we were able to confirm our original findings, as detailed above.

      *Reviewer field of expertise: phosphosite evolution, PTM evolution, protein evolution.

      *

      * *

      Reviewer #3 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)): *

      This manuscript describes the evolutionary conservation of yeast post-translationally modified residues and sequence motifs surrounding them.

      Reviewer #3 (Significance (Required)):

      Although this is not new, (Beltrao, Cell 2012, Minguez, MSB 2012, Hendriksen 2012) all show that sites of acetylation, phosphorylation and other modifications are more conserved in yeast than would be expected. Beltrao and Minguez also provide webservers http://ptmfunc.com/ http://ptmcode.embl.de where the link of conserved modified sites is made to protein structures and protein-protein interactions.

      The novelty of this study is in studying the duplicated proteins after whole genome duplication as well as providing an online interactive server where the conservation can be retrieved in detail, different scoring functions are provided. In addition, the conservation is calculated in closely related species rather than long evolutionary distances as previous studies have done.

      I am missing a concrete example of how a researcher would use the resource that the authors introduce here, and how it is an advance to previously proposed methods. For example, are there sites found conserved in this set of more closely related organisms, that are not conserved in yeast versus metazoa? Is the more fine-grained methodology useful to detect motif sequences that can otherwise not be detected? Can the authors provide proof that indeed the conserved sites are more functional than non-conserved?

      *

      *At the moment the manuscript describes very little results, and only a possible advance compared to previous methods, no proof is given that an actual advance is made. *

      The authors should compare their work to previous work in this field.

      We were very pleased and appreciative of the reviewer’s comments, and constructive suggestions for improving the manuscript.____ We have added new text to better emphasize the importance of the question, the novelty of our approach, the significance of the results, and the potential for future discovery, as follows:

      “Post-translational modifications are critical functional elements within proteins, and are therefore expected to be conserved in evolution. Here, we have identified several thousand instances where, despite a shared ancestry, only one of two paralogous proteins undergoes a specific post-translational modification. We also developed a custom algorithm that quantifies sequence conservation, in an automated fashion, across 1012 unique strain isolates. By comparing adjoining sequences in multiple isolates of the same species, we determined that sequence conservation near sites of modification is greater than at sites that are not modified. In addition, many of the modifications were associated with characteristic sequence elements nearby. We postulate that these differences in sequence conservation are partly responsible for differences in post-translational modifications, that differences in post-translational modifications allow duplicated proteins to be differentially regulated, and these differences may account for their retention after 100M years of evolution.

      Our analysis is clearly distinct from - and complementary to - earlier investigations of post-translational modifications in yeasts. Previous analysis showed that duplicated proteins in Saccharomyces cerevisiae are more likely to be phosphorylated, and to have a greater number of phosphorylation sites, than non-duplicated proteins (58). The difference persisted when controlling for differences in protein abundance, coverage, essentiality, positioning within protein interaction networks and assembly into multi-protein complexes (58). When compared with a yeast species that diverged before the whole genome duplication event, it appears that the majority of phosphorylation sites in paralogs have either been lost or gained, with a strong bias toward losses (56). Subsequent cross-species comparisons noted a high degree of sequence conservation near sites of phosphorylation and other types of modification in yeasts (49, 59-65). The relationship was strongest for phosphosites with known function (49, 50, 61). A focused study of 249 unique high-confidence phosphorylation sites, targeted by 7 protein kinases in S. cerevisiae, confirmed that regions flanking sites of phosphorylation are significantly constrained, in comparison with other closely related yeast species (61). A similar relationship exists for sites phosphorylated by the cyclin-dependent protein kinase Cdk1 (66), and was the basis for predicting novel sites of phosphorylation by the cAMP-dependent protein kinase (67). Our analysis builds on these foundational studies, by considering new and substantially larger proteomics datasets, multiple additional types of post-translational modifications, new and sophisticated models of protein structure, large-scale kinase interactome data, and in-species sequence conservation data – with particular emphasis on duplicated proteins.

      We propose that in-species comparisons of paralogs will prove to be more reliable than cross-species comparisons of orthologous proteins, or in-species comparisons of non-homologous proteins. Comparison of paralogs is powerful because they are likely to have similar structures and functions, due to their shared evolutionary origin (56, 58, 68). Comparison within a single species is powerful because it allows us to avoid important non-biological sources of uncertainty, such as potential alignment errors and unknown structural or functional differences. This is supported by a small number of prior studies, which compared four sets of paralogous proteins in yeast - Rck1 v. Rck2, Fkh1 v. Fkh2, Ace2 v. Swi5 (68), and Boi1 v. Boi2 (58), and concluded that divergence in short linear motifs is likely responsible for differences in phosphorylation. While paralogs are far less common in other organisms, a similar conclusion emerged from a comparison of predicted sites of phosphorylation in mammalian p53, p63 and p73 (69).

      Our analysis of differentially-modified pairs of paralogous proteins revealed that the most common modifications – phosphorylation, ubiquitylation and acylation but not N-glycosylation – occur within regions of high sequence conservation. Further studies will benefit from the availability of our search algorithm CoSMoS.c.. For example, when studying a particular protein kinase, CoSMoS.c. can be used to identify specific motifs near potentially modified serines, threonines and tyrosines (Table 2). When studying a particular substrate of ubiquitylation, CoSMoS.c. can be used to prioritize conserved versus non-conserved sequences flanking potentially modified lysines. For rare modifications, CoSMoS.c. can also be used to locate highly conserved regions as the starting points for finding new sequence motifs. Thus, by comparing unique modifications in closely-related gene products and across closely-related strain isolates, we can prioritize mechanistic investigations of modifications that are likely to have functional importance, to identify recognition motifs for specific modifying enzymes, and to better predict new enzyme-substrate relationships.”

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      Referee #3

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      This manuscript describes the evolutionary conservation of yeast post-translationally modified residues and sequence motifs surrounding them.

      Significance

      Although this is not new, (Beltrao, Cell 2012, Minguez, MSB 2012, Hendriksen 2012) all show that sites of acetylation, phosphorylation and other modifications are more conserved in yeast than would be expected. Beltrao and Minguez also provide webservers http://ptmfunc.com/ http://ptmcode.embl.de where the link of conserved modified sites is made to protein structures and protein-protein interactions.

      The novelty of this study is in studying the duplicated proteins after whole genome duplication as well as providing an online interactive server where the conservation can be retrieved in detail, different scoring functions are provided. In addition, the conservation is calculated in closely related species rather than long evolutionary distances as previous studies have done.

      I am missing a concrete example of how a researcher would use the resource that the authors introduce here, and how it is an advance to previously proposed methods. For example, are there sites found conserved in this set of more closely related organisms, that are not conserved in yeast versus metazoa? Is the more fine-grained methodology useful to detect motif sequences that can otherwise not be detected? Can the authors provide proof that indeed the conserved sites are more functional than non-conserved?

      At the moment the manuscript describes very little results, and only a possible advance compared to previous methods, no proof is given that an actual advance is made.

      The authors should compare their work to previous work in this field.

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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary

      The authors of this work study how S. cerevisiae paralogue pairs are differentially modified with respect to five major PTM classes: phosphorylation, ubiquitination, mono-acetylation, N-glycosylation, and succinylation. Emphasis is placed on paralogue pairs where a modification is found in only one of the two paralogues at homologous positions. A conservation analysis is then performed across 1011 S. cerevisiae isolates to check for differences in conservation between the modified target and its unmodified paralogue. The authors claim that, for most of the PTM classes, modified targets tend to be more conserved than their unmodified paralogues. Phosphorylation sites between paralogue pairs were also compared using AlphaFold2 and a database of kinase interactions (YeastKID), revealing differential interactions between paralogues but no significant structural differences.

      Major:

      1. A major issue with this work is that the problem of 'false negatives' for PTM detection is never adequately addressed or controlled for. As the authors allude to in the manuscript, the number of PTM sites detected is likely far below the number that exists and this is especially a problem for the less well characterised PTM classes. How then can the authors be confident that an 'unmodified' site is truly unmodified and not just undetected? The authors can refer to Freschi et al., 2011 (MSB) for a method that controls for the false negative (FN) PTM detection rate by comparing cross-study conservation with cross-study reproducibility.
      2. The second point follows closely from the first. The issue is that MS-based PTM detection is generally biased towards abundant proteins, and protein abundance also correlates strongly with evolutionary rate, with more abundant proteins tending to have higher conservation. Taken together, these two relationships could explain the observation that the modified paralogue tends to be more conserved than the 'unmodified' paralogue. The authors should try and control for the effect of protein abundance on the results observed; for example, by checking if the results/conclusions change when restricting the analysis to paralogue pairs with similar abundances.
      3. Alongside false negatives, there is the cognate issue of false positives and mislocalised PTM sites (see Lanz et al., 2021, EMBO Reports). If possible, the authors should check to see if their conclusions change when restricting the analysis to high-confidence PTM sites identified from multiple sources and/or validated by low throughput experimental assays.
      4. The authors define conservation here using 1011 wild and domesticated yeast isolates within one species (S. cerevisiae). While this is clearly valuable information, this reviewer wonders why orthologues from closely related species were not also leveraged to assess the evolutionary rate, as is traditionally done for studies on PTM evolution? Is there a strong rationale for this? Using more distantly-related genomes could give more statistical power for the detection of weak differences in selective constraint between paralogues.

      Minor:

      1. Both the Introduction and Discussion describe PTMs and the evolution of gene duplication in very general terms. However, literature concerning the evolution of PTMs and specifically the evolution of PTMs following gene duplication has been largely ignored. These studies give the most relevant context to this work and should be described and cited. Freschi et al., 2011 (Molecular Systems Biology) and Ba et al., 2014 (PloS Computational Biology) are particularly relevant.
      2. While I enjoyed to a limited extent the historical perspective on PTM discovery, there is far too much text given to this overall and the writing should be made more concise by removing excessive detail. This is especially the case for the Results section, where the emphasis should be on the analysis performed by the authors.
      3. Description of the methodology should be reviewed for language and clarity. In particular, the authors should explain explicitly the meaning of new terms such as 'pairing structure' and how this may confer an 'advantage / disadvantage' to target proteins -- wording that this reviewer found especially confusing and unnecessary. The authors should also be explicit about how the distributions for each test are constructed; the current wording sometimes gives the impression that a distribution is derived from a single target or paralogue instead of being derived from a set of modified targets and the corresponding set of unmodified paralogues. Another confusion is that the Distribution Mean Test is contrasted with the Paralog Pairing Test in Fig S8 and yet on page 15 the Distribution Mean Test is described as 'paired' test on page 15 even though from the description the test seems unpaired?
      4. Following on from point 2) in the 'major' section above, the authors could consider normalising the conservation scores within a protein to control for the effect of protein abundance and other potential confounders acting at the protein level.
      5. For the analysis of motifs, departure from the BLOSUM62 expectation may just reflect the fact that many of these PTMs fall in disordered regions - which have distinct amino acid propensities -- whereas matrices like BLOSUM62 were constructed mostly from ordered protein regions.
      6. The analysis of sequence motifs could be extended by scoring phosphosites with yeast position weight matrices (PWMs) for protein kinases and comparing the results between modified targets and their unmodified paralogues. This can help distinguish true positive and false negative modification differences. See Freschi et al., 2011 (Molecular Systems Biology).

      Significance

      This work is potentially of specialist interest to researchers studying the evolution of PTMs. While the evolution of phosphorylation following gene duplication has been studied previously (Freschi et al 2011, MSB), this work considers other PTM classes and takes advantage of a much larger data set. Potentially, clear examples of paralogue PTM divergence could be used as a basis for follow-up experiments. However, the web-server as it is now is designed to facilitate the easy analysis of a single protein at a time and not comparisons across paralogue pairs.

      Currently, the major problems stated above 1) correction for the problem of false negatives, and 2) correction for the confounding effects of protein abundance need to be addressed before the results can be fully interpreted and evaluated.

      Reviewer field of expertise: phosphosite evolution, PTM evolution, protein evolution.

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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary:

      This paper reports bioinformatics analysis of population variation in PTM sites in paralogs from the yeast whole-genome-duplication. If I understand it correctly, the main finding is that modified sites show less population variation than paralagous unmodified sites. The results are largely in line with what is expected based on previous studies, though the authors do not present their results in that context.

      Major comments:

      1. The study benefits from two clever design choices:

      First, comparison of sites between paralogs is a very powerful test for an evolutionary hypothesis because paralogous sites are expected to have relatively similar structural context. Second, use of within species polymorphism data is much less susceptible to alignment errors that can be an issue for longer evolutionary comparisons.

      However, these design choices are not discussed or motivated by the authors. Nor are they compared to the designs of previous studies. Examples of previous studies (PMID: 22588506, PMID: 21273632, PMID: 20594336,PMID: 20594336, PMID: 24465218, PMID: 22889910, PMID: 20368267, PMID: 28054638) 2. One essential control that needs to be added is how much of the effect the authors observe can be explained by protein abundance. In yeast, protein abundance is strongly negatively correlated with evolutionary rate, and is strongly positively correlated with identification of PTMs in MS and other assays (extensively discussed in some of the previous studies I listed above). The authors need to assess whether their findings are due to the slow evolution of highly expressed proteins, and the detection bias for these proteins in PTM identification experiments. As far as I could tell this was not discussed by the authors. 3. A major weakness of the paper is its lack of focus. It includes a rambling historical introduction and discussion that omits discussion of the relevant recent research directly related to the questions at hand. For example, the paper describes historical work on phosphorylase, but gives not a single example of a paralog pair with a polymorphic PTM site identified in their study. The authors introduce gene duplication in a very general way, even though several papers have focused specifically on evolution of protein regulation in paralogs (e.g., PMID: 20080574, PMID: 27003913, PMID: 25474245) The paper of Nguyen Ba et al. 2014 (PMID: 25474245) seems especially relevant, as in addition to perfoming a genome-wide analysis, their abstract reads "We examine changes in constraints on known regulatory sequences and show that for the Rck1/Rck2, Fkh1/Fkh2, Ace2/Swi5 paralogs, they are associated with previously characterized differences in posttranslational regulation." It seems that the results of that study could be directly compared to the analysis performed here.

      Significance

      The significance is hard to assess because the research is not given proper context and motivation.

      I believe the study could be of interest to research studying cell signalling and its evolution, as well as those interested in gene family diversification. However, as written, no specific examples are given or clear hypotheses tested, making the paper seem largely descriptive.

      My keywords: molecular evolution, signalling, intrinsically disordered regions, computational biology

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      Reply to the reviewers

      Manuscript number: RC-2022-01707

      Corresponding author(s): Sarah Butcher, Richard Lundmark

      1. General Statements [optional]

      We thank the reviewers for their insightful comments. The inclusion of the points raised by the referees have strengthened the manuscript. However, some of the reviewer suggestions are beyond the scope of the work (see below), but will doubtlessly be touched upon in future studies by the authors. In addition to incorporating changes relevant to answering the reviewers’ comments, we have edited the manuscript for increased clarity and precision.

      2. Description of the planned revisions

      1. Liposome flotation assay Reviewer #1 suggested that we should perform a liposome floatation assay to separate possible C protein aggregation from membrane binding: "I would strongly recommend supplementing the current liposome sedimentation assay by liposome flotation assay. In contrast to liposome co-sedimentation, the flotation assay can discriminate protein aggregates from proteins bound to liposomes. Although the SDS PAGE shown in Fig. 1A looks pretty convincing, a faint protein band in the „P" lane of the middle panel for the (-) sample is evident. Therefore, C protein aggregation cannot be ruled out and it would be indistinguishable from liposome binding examined by mere co-sedimentation assay”

      Response: We agree that this is a necessary control experiment to add, and we will perform it with liposomes containing 40 % POPS. As we detected complete C protein co-sedimentation with this lipid composition, performing the flotation experiment with the same composition will prove that the earlier result indicates lipid binding and not protein aggregation.

      3. Description of the revisions that have already been incorporated in the transferred manuscript

      1. Reviewer #1
      2. In addition, it needs to be clarified which TBEV C protein construct, whether full-length or truncated, was used for co-sedimentation fragmentation.

      Response: We have clarified in this section of the manuscript that the full-length C protein construct was used for the liposome co-sedimentation assays by adding “full-length” prior to instances of “C protein” e.g. in the paragraph starting line 118.

      1. How to understand the finding that „the C protein forms a very rigid layer when adsorbed to the membrane". Can the aggregation of C-protein be ruled-out? Following the 1M NaCl wash of C-protein-bound to SLB, the authors stated: „This shows that initial membrane recruitment of C protein is strongly dependent on its interactions with the negatively-charged lipid headgroups. However, once bound, the C protein-membrane interaction is complemented with non-electrostatic interactions such as membrane insertion or protein oligomerization": does it mean that there are several layers of C protein, the first held by electrostatic interactions, overlayed by non-electrostatically bound C protein? If yes, the illustration of single-layered C-protein adsorbed onto SLB in Fig. 2A, B is not correct.

      Response: We understand the confusion regarding the term “rigid” which was used as a way to describe how we interpret the relatively minor change in the dissipation upon membrane binding. What we intended to describe was that this indicates that the protein is attached in a stable way that does not add viscoelastic properties to the system. These data indicate that the protein does not form large aggregates that non-specifically attach to the membrane in different protrusive orientations. We have clarified this in the manuscript and specified that the as there is no dissipation change, there is no aggregation. We added the following to line 168 “This, in turn, indicates that the C protein does not bind as non-specific aggregates as these would have changed the viscoelastic properties of the system.”

      We do not mean that there are several layers of C protein. We consider, due to the highly charged nature of C, that the most likely explanation is that there are multiple modes of C binding but the result is only one layer, with multiple C-proteins interacting with each other within that layer. We have modified the text at line 184 to: “However, once bound, the C protein-membrane interaction is complemented with non-electrostatic interactions such as membrane insertion or protein oligomerization within the bound layer.”

      1. The sentence: “To confirm that the C protein is biologically active, we investigated its ability to bind RNA" seems to be a little odd because it suggests the model membrane binding assays do not require biological active proteins. However, considering that the interactions leading to binding either negatively-charged lipid or negatively-charged RNA are electrostatic - this sentence must be rewritten.” Response: We thank the reviewer and have now rephrased this sentence to the following at line 249 “Since RNA binding is crucial for the NC assembly, we investigated the C protein’s ability to perform this function.”

      2. “The authors´ statement in the Abstract: „....we investigate nucleocapsid assembly..." is too speculative because the assembly was not studied in their work. It needs to be reformulated.” Response: We agree, and the statement has been removed from the abstract.

      3. Despite this clear and valuable methodological contribution, the authors' contribution to our knowledge of the coordination of the nucleocapsid components to the sites of assembly and budding is not so obvious. Contrary to the earlier idea that the flavivirus is asymmetrically charged (that is, hydrophobic on one side (α2) and positively charged on the other side (α4), recent studies show that the entire surface of the protein is highly electropositive (Mebus-Antunnes et al., 2022). Therefore, a well-ordered neutralization of the flaviviral C proteins' highly positive surface seems critical for the proper organization and assembly of nucleocapsid. I am afraid that the authors do not shed much light on this issue.” Response: The recent structure of the TBEV C protein, published after we submitted the manuscript, shows that indeed the C protein is highly positively charged on all surfaces (updated Supplementary Figure 1 and Selinger et al., 2022). The recruitment of C protein to the membrane, that we demonstrate is dependent on negatively-charged head groups, provides a biologically relevant mechanism for charge neutralization on the C protein surface that interacts with the lipids. The remaining surface charge can be then neutralized by RNA recruitment. Mebus-Antunnes et al. made their observations with just RNA and C protein from Dengue virus in the context of artificial surfaces e.g. mica. However, our experiments utilize the TBEV C protein and specifically include a membrane, the third critical component of NC assembly. Thus, we build upon the work of Mebus-Antunnes et al. by adding a second biologically relevant charge-neutralising component and comparing with a distantly-related virus. We have changed the discussion section of the manuscript to reflect this new structure and to emphasize the advance here. Starting from line 371 we changed the text to: “Recently, it has been shown that the neutralization of the C protein surface positive charge is important for RNA binding in the distantly-related Dengue virus (DENV) (Mebus-Antunes et al, 2022). The recruitment of C protein to the membrane, that we demonstrate is dependent on negatively-charged head groups, provides a biologically relevant mechanism for charge neutralization on the C protein surface that interacts with the lipids. The remaining surface charge can be then neutralized by RNA recruitment.”

      Reviewer #2 1. “What results demonstrate C protein inserts into membrane? The current results support the C protein interacts with membranes with positive charge, but do not seem to demonstrate membrane insertion. If the C protein inserts into the membrane, which regions (helices) play this role?”

      Response: The Langmuir-Blodgett trough tensiometry experiments with monolayers directly measure the insertion of a protein into the monolayer. By determining the maximum insertion pressure of the C protein constructs, we also show that the membrane insertion can occur in bilayers. We show that the N-terminus is not inserting into the membrane, further work, beyond the scope of this manuscript, is needed to pinpoint the residues responsible for insertion, for instance by hydrogen-deuterium exchange or FRET measurements that would not affect folding. To clarify the use of the LB trough, we added the following at line 216: “To investigate if the C protein membrane binding includes insertion into the membrane after the initial electrostatic binding, we used Langmuir-Blodgett trough monolayer experiments. In this approach, the insertion of a protein into a lipid monolayer can be detected by following the pressure (π) of the monolayer after protein injection into the aqueous subphase, with increases in π corresponding to protein injection (Brockman, 1999; Liu et al, 2022).“

      1. The authors should discuss several previous papers reporting the effect of partial deletions of the C gene on the replication of TBEV, West Nile virus, and other flaviviruses.” Response: We agree that this is a necessary addition, and have now added a paragraph in the discussion section starting at line 333: “N-terminally truncated flaviviral C proteins have been shown to be assembly competent and in vitro, able to bind RNA, which is consistent with our results with N-terminally truncated TBEV C protein (Khromykh & Westaway, 1996; Kofler et al, 2002; Patkar et al, 2007; Schlick et al, 2009). One role of C is in the modulation of host responses to infection and the N-terminus maybe involved in that (Yang et al, 2002; Limjindaporn et al, 2007; Colpitts et al, 2011; Bhuvanakantham & Ng, 2013; Katoh et al, 2013; Urbanowski & Hobman, 2013; Samuel et al, 2016; Slomnicki et al, 2017; Fontaine et al, 2018). The membrane insertion directly detected in our experiments is central to C protein function. Other studies have found that deletions in the hydrophobic region of the α2 helix significantly impair particle assembly (Kofler et al, 2002; Patkar et al, 2007; Schlick et al, 2009). In the light of this evidence, we consider that the α2 helix could be responsible for membrane insertion (Markoff et al, 1997; Kofler et al, 2002; Nemésio et al, 2011, 2013).”

      Reviewer #3 1. “In Figure 4, the band (256:1) that are supposedly in the wells (red arrow) is not clear- it is only slightly darker than the other wells.”

      Response: This confusion was the result of unclear wording. We have now revised the figure legend at line 278 to : “The black arrow indicates the bands of freely-migrating RNA, and the red arrow the wells. On lanes 624:1 and 256:1, RNA has been immobilized in the wells.”

      1. Figure S1A, the N-terminal end (which is truncated in the mutant) should be colored on the cyan molecule.” Response: We have coloured the truncated part of the cyan molecule in the figure (now S1B) according to the reviewer’s comment.

      Other 1. As the nuclear magnetic resonance structure of the truncated TBEV C protein has recently been released (Selinger et al, 2022), we have updated the manuscript and Figure S1 to include the information from this structure. We have also generated a new homology model of the full-length TBEV C protein using this structure as a template and included that in Figure S1.

      4. Description of analyses that authors prefer not to carry out

      1. Reviewer #1
      2. However, we do not know whether in the infected cells, the C protein is pre-bound to ER membrane or to viral RNA. Having such a unique assay in their hands, I wonder whether the authors could use the pre-bound C protein with genomic RNA (i.e. the experiment shown in Fig. 4A) ribonucleoprotein complex in the SLB binding assay. If doable, this experiment would be exciting and could bring some important information about NC assembly.”

      Response: We agree that it would be very interesting to decipher if the C-protein first binds to RNA or to membranes using the QCM-D methodology. Yet, our data on pre-incubated C-protein and RNA suggests that large aggregates are formed which would hamper the interpretation of the QCM-D data. Furthermore, based on the suggested experiment, we will not be able to firmly conclude whether or not the C-protein first binds to RNA or to membranes since the time of the experiment will allow rearrangement of preformed complexes between C-protein and RNA. Additionally, the QCM-D measurement cannot differentiate if the preformed complexes bind on their own, or if excess unbound C protein binds the membrane and then recruits the complex. Therefore, addressing this question would require major adjustments to the RNA model system and methodology that we feel are beyond the scope of this study.

      Reviewer 2 1. “The authors should use the lipids detected in the virions to confirm C protein binding experiments.”

      Response: In the mass spectrometry characterization of the TBEV virions, we detected lipids from 9 classes (Car, PE, PS, PI, PG, PC, Cer, HexCer & TG). We have tested four of them (PE, PS, PI, PC) in the liposome sedimentation assay. Additionally, we tested GalCer, which, like HexCer, are cerebrosides. Our liposome binding experiments clearly demonstrate that the C protein does not bind to a specific lipid class, but instead to lipids with negatively-charged headgroups. Therefore, we would argue that doing additional sedimentation experiments with Car, PG, Cer, and TG would not add extra insight to the manuscript.

      Additionally, while the population of lipid species in the TBEV envelope is diverse, the diversity mostly comes from differences in the lipid tails, which do not generally affect the head group-mediated binding of proteins. Therefore, performing additional lipid binding experiments with varying tail lengths would not likely lead to new observations.

      Finally, to perform the authentic experiment of testing C protein binding to liposomes formed from lipids extracted from purified virions would require orders of magnitude more virus sample than our research laboratory is capable of producing. Therefore, we argue that this experiment is beyond the scope of this study.

      1. The study may be strengthened by performing virus mutagenesis experiments.” Response: While we agree that, ultimately, experiments on virus and cells would help to understand the role of the C protein in the biological context, we think these experiments are beyond the scope of this study. For virus mutagenesis, candidate residues should be first identified with biochemical and biophysical studies, which is already beyond the scope of this work. Additionally, the C protein has multiple functions in the host cell in addition to NC assembly, and interpreting the effect on the mutations on e.g. virus titer is difficult.

      Reviewer #3 1. “In all figure legends, authors should write a conclusion line after the description of the experiments - what conclusion is drawn from each experiment.”

      Response: While we agree that adding such a conclusion line would make it easier for the reader to understand each figure, the format of the figure legends is highly subject to journal policy. Therefore, we think that the addition of such lines will be an editorial decision and will depend on the journal. We have, however strived to make the figure titles as informative as possible in lieu of such concluding lines.

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      Referee #3

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Pulkkinen and co-authors, title: Simultaneous membrane and RNA binding by TBE virus capsid protein.

      This paper characterizes the ability of purified TBE capsid proteins to bind to different composition of lipids by biophysical methods and found that it prefers to bind to negatively charge lipids. The capsid then partially inserts into the membrane. Using mass spectrometry, they analyze the lipid composition of the purified TBE virus and showed they composed of negatively charge lipids thereby further supporting that the virus is likely first assembled where the negatively charge lipids are located in the endoplasmic reticulum. They also characterize the membrane bound capsid protein's ability to bind RNA and show they are able to bind. For all these experiments, they also included a capsid mutant with its N-terminal end deleted and show the mutant capsid protein activity doesn't not differ much from the whole capsid protein- thus showing the N-terminal end is likely not important for these processes. The experiments are well conducted and the manuscript is very clearly written.

      Comments:

      1. In Figure 4, the band (256:1) that are supposedly in the wells (red arrow) is not clear- it is only slightly darker than the other wells.

      Minor comments:

      1. In all figure legends, authors should write a conclusion line after the description of the experiments - what conclusion is drawn from each experiment.
      2. Figure S1A, the N-terminal end (which is truncated in the mutant) should be colored on the cyan molecule.

      Referees cross-commenting

      I agree with comments by Reviewers #1 and #2

      Significance

      The study here although done in an in vitro system illuminates the virus assembly process - the positively charged capsid protein binds to the negatively charge area of the endoplasmic reticulum membrane, the capsid then partially insert into the membrane, then capsid interacts with viral RNA genome to facilitate virus assembly process. This is a very detailed study of the initial steps of the virus assembly process.

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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Pulkkinen et al. performed biochemical and biophysical experiments to suggest (1) negatively charged lipids are required for TBEV C protein interacting with membrane, (2) the membrane-associated C protein could simultaneously bind viral RNA, (3) the first 17 amino acids are not required for (1) and (2), and (4) TBEV virions contain negatively charged lipids. The study is important and provides molecular insights in flavivirus assembly. The following points can substantiate the manuscript.

      Major points

      1. The authors should use the lipids detected in the virions to confirm C protein binding experiments.
      2. What results demonstrate C protein inserts into membrane? The current results support the C protein interacts with membranes with positive charge, but do not seem to demonstrate membrane insertion. If the C protein inserts into the membrane, which regions (helices) play this role?
      3. The study may be strengthened by performing virus mutagenesis experiments.
      4. The authors should discuss several previous papers reporting the effect of partial deletions of the C gene on the replication of TBEV, West Nile virus, and other flaviviruses.

      Significance

      This is an important study as indicated in the comments to authors.

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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      The authors characterized the interactions of recombinant, bacterially expressed full-length and N-terminally truncated C proteins of tick borne encephalitis virus with model membrane systems. They used a unique combination of biophysical methods, including protein liposome co-sedimentation, QCM-D measurement and Langmuir-Blodgett trough monolayer experiments. Their experiments showed that the binding of TBEV C to both liposomes and supported lipid bilayer (SLB) is strongly dependent on the presence of negatively charged lipids. They also showed that following the initial electrostatic binding to the model lipid membrane, both C protein variants absorb to the SLB and form rigid layers which are stabilized by non-electrostatic interactions. By Langmuir-Blodgett trough monolayer experiments they demonstrated that negatively charged lipids are needed for C protein membrane insertion. The SLB bound C proteins, either full-length or N-terminally truncated, were shown to bind in vitro transcribed TBEV genomic RNA. Finally, to prove their major finding that negatively charged lipid head groups are crucial for C protein interaction with the lipid membrane, the authors analyzed the lipid content of the purified virions.

      This work deals with the central role of the C protein, namely with its binding to the lipid membrane and genomic RNA. In the infected cells, this process leads to nucleocapsid assembly, a step which is poorly understood. The authors demonstrate that the membrane affinity of the C protein is conditioned by the presence of negatively charged polar heads. The text and figures are clear and accurate. The results obtained from three independent methodological approaches are solid and confirm the importance of electrostatic interactions for a contact of C protein with the membrane. As highly interesting, I considered the observation that the C protein, while bound to the model membrane (SLB), still retains its ability to bind RNA. Although their data did not show anything about the orientation of the C protein in SLB, this methodology opens the way to how, using suitable mutants of TBEV C, this can be found. I am sure that the authors are aware of the possibilities of studying a series of the TBEV C mutants with impaired membrane or RNA binding. Therefore, I assume that the authors' primary focus here is to show new methodological approaches to the simultaneous measurement of C protein interactions with model membranes and RNA, and some data obtained on the abovementioned mutants will be published afterwards.

      Major comments:

      1. One of the fundamental challenges of the work with flaviviral capsid proteins is that they tend to form amorphous aggregates to neutralize their highly positive surface charge. As the authors state themselves, „ We cannot rule out that the C protein preparation is heterogeneous..." I would strongly recommend supplementing the current liposome sedimentation assay by liposome flotation assay. In contrast to liposome co-sedimentation, the flotation assay can discriminate protein aggregates from proteins bound to liposomes. Although the SDS PAGE shown in Fig. 1A looks pretty convincing, a faint protein band in the „P" lane of the middle panel for the (-) sample is evident. Therefore, C protein aggregation cannot be ruled out and it would be indistinguishable from liposome binding examined by mere co-sedimentation assay. In addition, it needs to be clarified which TBEV C protein construct, whether full-length or truncated, was used for co-sedimentation fragmentation.
      2. In section: Initial C protein recruitment to the membrane is of an electrostatic nature How to understand the finding that „the C protein forms a very rigid layer when adsorbed to the membrane". Can the aggregation of C-protein be ruled-out?

      Following the 1M NaCl wash of C-protein-bound to SLB, the authors stated: „This shows that initial membrane recruitment of C protein is strongly dependent on its interactions with the negatively-charged lipid headgroups. However, once bound, the C protein-membrane interaction is complemented with non-electrostatic interactions such as membrane insertion or protein oligomerization": does it mean that there are several layers of C protein, the first held by electrostatic interactions, overlayed by non-electrostatically bound C protein? If yes, the illustration of single-layered C-protein adsorbed onto SLB in Fig. 2A, B is not correct. 3. C protein inserts into membranes It is beyond the frame of this work; however, it would be nice to show whether mutations of amino acid residues within the hydrophobic segment of TBEV C, which are in other flaviviral C proteins considered responsible for hydrophobic interaction, can abolish the membrane interaction. 4. Membrane-bound C protein can recruit TBEV genomic RNA. The sentence „ To confirm that the C protein is biologically active, we investigated its ability to bind RNA" seems to be a little odd because it suggests the model membrane binding assays do not require biological active proteins. However, considering that the interactions leading to binding either negatively-charged lipid or negatively-charged RNA are electrostatic - this sentence must be rewritten. 5. The authors state, "These data show that membrane-bound C protein is capable of recruiting TBEV genomic RNA at the membrane, suggesting that this also happens in the context of NC assembly". However, we do not know whether in the infected cells, the C protein is pre-bound to ER membrane or to viral RNA. Having such a unique assay in their hands, I wonder whether the authors could use the pre-bound C protein with genomic RNA (i.e. the experiment shown in Fig. 4A) ribonucleoprotein complex in the SLB binding assay. If doable, this experiment would be exciting and could bring some important information about NC assembly.

      Minor comments:

      The authors´ statement in the Abstract: „....we investigate nucleocapsid assembly..." is too speculative because the assembly was not studied in their work. It needs to be reformulated.

      Referees cross-commenting

      I agree with the Reviews by reviewers #2 and #3

      Significance

      This manuscript's major novelty and originality are in using a unique combination of biophysical methods, including quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring and Langmuir-Blodgett trough. Using quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation, the authors confirmed the necessity of negatively charged lipid components of the model lipid membrane for C-protein binding. Furthermore, this method also allows them to measure the formation of a rigid layer of C protein stabilized by non-electrostatic interactions. By Langmuir-Blodgett trough monolayer experiments, they demonstrated the insertion of TBEV C protein into the model membrane. However, I do not have sufficient expertise to evaluate the correctness of the experiments done by these two methodologies.

      Despite this clear and valuable methodological contribution, the authors' contribution to our knowledge of the coordination of the nucleocapsid components to the sites of assembly and budding is not so obvious. Contrary to the earlier idea that the flavivirus is asymmetrically charged (that is, hydrophobic on one side (α2) and positively charged on the other side (α4), recent studies show that the entire surface of the protein is highly electropositive (Mebus-Antunnes et al., 2022). Therefore, a well-ordered neutralization of the flaviviral C proteins' highly positive surface seems critical for the proper organization and assembly of nucleocapsid. I am afraid that the authors do not shed much light on this issue.

  2. Nov 2022
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      Referee #3

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      The objective of this manuscript was to determine the role of TZPs in mouse oocyte quality. The experimental plan was to compare the phenotypes of global Myo10-/-, oocyte Myo10-/-, and Myo10+/+ follicles. The results indicate that global loss of Myo10 did not prevent oocyte growth, but resulted in lower density of TZPS. Whole ovary image analysis revealed that Myo10-/- follicles actually contained more TZPs than wt, despite the fact that TZP density was decreased in Myo10-/- follicles. In mature knockout females, oocyte growth proceeded, but with impaired oocyte-zona integrity and alterations in gene expression including upregulation of numerous protein encoding genes. Oocytes from Myo10-/- knockout females produced a normal-appearing spindle but exhibited reduced capacity to mature beyond MI. Analysis of ovulated oocytes from mated females revealed an increase in the number of unfertilized and dead oocytes, many of which exhibited gaps between the zona pellucida and the oocyte plasma membrane. Those oocytes that were successfully fertilized exhibited a higher than normal of developmental arrest by the blastocyst stage. Lastly, mating trials revealed that Myo10-/- females were sub-fertile.

      The results are clearly described with high quality imaging to demonstrate phenotypes. The data appear reproducible based on sample size and the number of repetitions. In most cases, statistical analysis demonstrates significance of observed differences.

      Minor comments:

      1. Fig. 2B does not provide statistical evidence that the two data sets differ.
      2. Fig. 6A Was the zona pellucida functional in unfertilized oocytes from Myo10-/- females? That is, were sperm bound to the zona or within the perivitelline space?
      3. The observation that oocytes from Myo10-/- females have more TZPs but lower TZP density raises questions as to how more TZPs (even if less densely spaced) could fail to support oocyte development. Dye diffusion assays comparing the rate of injected dye from Myo10+/+ and Myo10-/- (GV stage) or (maturing) stage oocytes into their attached granulosa cells might reveal an explanation.

      Significance

      The manuscript addresses an important aspect of follicle development using state of the art methodology to test the requirement of Myo10 for successful TZP-oocyte interaction during follicle development. The authors demonstrate significant findings as to the mechanism by which TZPs enable granulosa cell-oocyte contact which is required for transfer of critical components from granulosa cell to oocyte. The requirement of Myo10 in this process in oocyte competence is demonstrated clearly, however the mechanism by which Myo10 ablation causes defective fertilization and development remains unclear. In any case, the results demonstrate new and interesting findings that will be of great interest to basic scientists including oocyte biologists working on diverse animal species. The results could lead to further understanding of TZP-oocyte interaction and reveal ways to improve or restore communication between these two cells.

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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary:

      The authors have investigated the effect of knocking out the Myosin-X gene (Myo10) on oocytes in mice. The major finding was that transzona processes (TZPs), which are filipodia-like structures that cross the oocyte's extracellular matrix shell (zona pellucida, ZP), were greatly reduced when the gene was globally knocked out. In comparison, an oocyte-specific knockout had no effect on TZPs. Using a machine learning algorithm developed by one of the authors, it was found that characteristics of the ZP were changed, and the oocyte shape was altered in the knockouts. RNAseq showed that many genes were upregulated in oocytes from knockout females. Oocytes from knockouts also failed to complete meiotic maturation at a higher rate and produced embryos that were fertilized less frequently and whose embryos were impaired in reaching the blastocyst stage. Finally, litters per female and pups per litter were lower in knockouts, indicating lower female fertility.

      Major comments:

      Overall, this is a very well done and comprehensive study that indicates a major role for MYO10 in oogenesis and oocyte developmental competence. There are some relatively major issues that should be resolved, however:

      1. An experiment was done to assess the number of follicles per ovary, which is shown in Fig. S3. No significant difference in follicle number (per unit area) was detected. However, there are two problems here. One is that only four repeats were done, and the lack of significance would appear to be driven by only one of the knockout repeats which had a high number of oocytes compared the others. It is possible that there is really not a biologically significant difference between the controls and somatic knockouts, but there are an insufficient number of repeats to determine this (technically, P>0.95 would mean they are the same). Second, it is unclear that the number of follicles per unit area is the relevant parameter for fertility rather than the absolute number of follicles. Both measures should be reported and tested statistically.
      2. A main function of TZPs is to transfer metabolites and other small molecules into the oocyte via Cx37-containing gap junctions. As the authors note, the phenotype here is different from the Cx37 knockout, where oocytes failed to develop. This implies some connectivity remains in Myo10 knockouts, but how much has not been determined. The amount of connectivity should be measured. The techniques are fairly straightforward and involve only microinjection of a fluorophore into the oocyte and measuring the spread into the surrounding somatic cells. This also has implications for the lack of effect on GVBD and resumption of meiosis, since Laurinda Jaffe's group has shown that diffusion of cGMP out though the gap junctions is important in this process.
      3. The TZP-like structures that remain are intriguing, but this was not followed up. They apparently are visible optically but contain neither actin nor membrane. Is it possible that these are tracks left from degenerated TZPs? Electron microscopy might resolve this question and should be considered. In any case, a more extensive discussion is warranted since the data are contradictory, with fluorescence-based methods indicating a decrease in TZPs but optical methods indicating an apparent increase.
      4. The apparent delay in formation of a perivitelline space is interesting. The perivitelline space forms gradually as the ZP detaches from the oocyte independent of meiotic maturation (see, e.g., Richard et al., 2017, J Cell Physiol 232:2436-46). Could this not be a delay in detachment and therefore transient (and dependent on when the assay was performed relative to oocyte isolation)?
      5. While GO analysis was done and shown in Table 1, this is not treated in any depth in the paper. There should be more description of the GO pathways that were upregulated and the implications.

      Minor comments:

      1. The comparisons that were done for whole-body knockout vs. oocyte-specific knockouts were only done by comparing each to its control. There is no direct comparison showing whether the two knockouts differ significantly from each other. The comparisons should be done using ANOVA with appropriate post-hoc tests to test all four groups against each other.
      2. The experiment in which 5-ethynyl uridine incorporation was used to show that global transcription was not increased may not actually be conclusive, since a large amount of RNA synthesized is not mRNA. A global increase in mRNA synthesis could still be occurring but the signal swamped by RNAs such as rRNA and other non-coding RNAs.

      Referees cross-commenting

      It looks like the reviewers basically agree that this is interesting but there are questions remaining about whether cumulus-oocyte coupling is affected (and could explain the phenotype) and why there is an apparent discrepancy between the results for detecting the numbers and densities of TZPs. These should be addressed.

      Significance

      This work has fundamental implications for understanding oocyte development and the role of the surrounding somatic cells in oogenesis and oocyte developmental competence. It also has direct implications for human and animal fertility and assisted reproduction.

      This is a fundamental new set of results that establishes a role for Myo10 and adds to the knowledge about the role of transzonal processes. It is a substantial advance over previously published research.

      The audience will primarily be basic biomedical researchers in the general field of reproductive biology as well as those investigating filipodia and should extend to those interested in translational research in infertility.

      I have direct and extensive expertise in the field of oogenesis in mice.

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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      In the manuscript by Crozet et al. the authors investigated the contribution of transzonal projections (TZPs) to the oocyte development and acquisition of competence. The results were obtained using two Myo10 knockout mice models: a full knockout for Myo10 (Myo10-/- full) and an oocyte-conditioned knockout (Myo10-/- oo). The major findings due to the global depletion of Myo10 include the decrease in TZP density, discrete morphological alterations in the oocytes, alterations in oocyte gene expression, the inability of the oocytes to complete the first meiotic division (lack of 1PB extrusion), and subfertility in Myo10-/- full females.

      The research topic is interesting and, overall, I consider the manuscript relevant. However, to increase the scientific soundness authors are encouraged to explore the effects of the (partial) interruption of the germ-soma communication on the regulation of meiotic arrest and resumption. This is worth investigating (is optional, but highly recommended) since the lower density of TZPs is associated with an apparent normal meiotic arrest but an abnormal meiotic resumption. At first, the measurement of cGMP and cAMP into oocytes during meiotic arrest and resumption would be a nice try. This will help to shed light on the reasons for the abnormal meiotic progression, indicating if it is the consequence of a direct blockage in the transfer of molecules from follicular cells to the oocyte or an indirect consequence.

      Minor points

      Lines 53-55: The oocyte does not complete two successive meiotic divisions to generate a mature oocyte ready to be fertilized. Instead, meiosis completion only occurs if fertilization of MII-arrested oocytes takes place. Consider rephrasing to communicate the accurate concept.

      Lines 145-153 and Figure S4-F: Authors claim that TZP-deprived oocytes grow up to normal sizes. However, the perimeter of fully grown oocytes is lower in Myo10-/- full oocytes. This is conflicting.

      Referees cross-commenting

      In addition to the comments made by my own, my colleagues both suggested the inclusion of experiments to determine the functionality of the remaining TZP through dye diffusion assays. I concur with them.

      Significance

      The manuscript clearly adds to the existing knowledge. I'm convinced that the findings described here will be of interest for readers from the field of reproductive biology, follicle development, and oocyte biology.

      Authors are encouraged to better frame their findings as to the existing knowledge. There is at least one another knockout model in mice that leads to TZP density reduction (Zhang et al., 2021; Nature Comm., 12:2523). In this paper, the authors show that the TZPs connecting the GCs and the oocyte support proper oocyte development. Also, its removal results in subfertility. These previous findings should be acknowledged in the current manuscript.

      My expertise: researcher in reproductive biology; emphasis on folliculogenesis and oocyte development.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      Overall comments

      We are pleased by the reviewers’ comments and appreciate their suggestions for improvements. In addition to correcting small typos throughout the manuscript, the major changes we did in response to their comments are as follows:

      • Changed the title of our paper to reflect the strong evolutionary correlation more accurately between sex chromosomal meiotic drive and gains/losses of SNBP genes in
      • New experiments to test the role of the well-conserved, universally retained SNBP, CG30056, in male fertility in * melanogaster*. Although reviewers had suggested we could eliminate this section, we felt that this would add a lot of weight to the unexpectedly inverse relationship between age/retention and fertility functions of SNBP genes. Thus, over the past few months, we have carried out new experiments with increased sample sizes, better controls, and sperm exhaustion. These new results strengthen our earlier analyses.
      • Better clarification of the X-Y chromosome fusion, which is a new observation, in the montium group via careful rewriting as partly suggested by Reviewer #2.
      • Highlighting that the genetic conflicts hypothesis does not rule out a role for sperm competition or other conflicts in shaping SNBP evolution in a revised Discussion. All changes in response to the reviewer’s comments have been detailed in our point-by-point response (below). You will see that we have addressed almost all the suggestions made, including with new experiments. The only reviewer suggestions (all optional from Reviewer 3), which we did not directly address in our revision are:

      • __Branch specific protamine evolution analyses for sex chromosome amplified SNBP genes: __given the state of SNBP gene annotation and the difficulties of assembling these genes in large tandem arrays, this will require considerable work and is beyond the scope of the paper.

      • Covariation between SNBP evolution and sperm morphology: We cannot perform these experiments as there is a paucity of sperm morphology data currently. Obtaining this data reliably is a significant undertaking.
      • Are SNBP genes more prone to be lost than average in the montium group: We have not comprehensively examined all loss events in the montium group or any other Drosophila This is also a non-trivial analysis, albeit it would be very interesting. However, we believe the more relevant comparison is whether these lost SNBP genes are more likely to be retained in non-montium species, which they are, as we now highlight. We hope you will favorably judge our good faith efforts to address all other reviewers’ comments, and their laudatory comments during the previous round of reviews.

      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)): __

      Chang and Malik present a comprehensive evolutionary analysis of sperm nuclear basic proteins (SNBPs) in Drosophila. In addition, they provide a preliminary functional characterization of one such protein (CG30056) and describe a newly discovered X-Y chromosomal fusion in the Drosophila montium species group. All of these findings are interesting and important, but the headline from this study is the well-supported possibility that SNBPs, or at least a large fraction of them, function in suppressing X vs. Y chromosome meiotic drive. While this hypothesis is challenging to test experimentally, the authors provide strong correlational evidence that SNBPs are associated with drive by documenting these proteins' rapid evolution. This rapid evolution takes the form of sequence changes (as predicted by coevolution between drivers and suppressors of drive), gene amplification in cases when SNBPs move to sex chromosomes (consistent with the SNBP becoming a potential agent of drive for its new "home chromosome"), and gene loss in species with X-Y chromosome fusions (in which drive is not predicted to occur).

      Overall, this is an excellent, comprehensive study. The phylogenetic and genomic analyses are first-rate (and one of the first to make use of the new 101 Drosophila genomes); the logic is very well explained; conclusions are supported by multiple lines of evidence; the writing and figures are clear and accessible; and, the findings are fascinating. It's a good sign that it is easy to imagine several experiments one could do to follow up on this study, but I do not feel any are required in revision, as the manuscript is comprehensive as is. Thus, I have just a few minor points the authors may wish to consider in making revisions and a few suggestions for clarity/typos.

      __

      We thank the reviewer for their positive comments on our work.

      1. I would be interested in whether the authors think that all SNBPs in a given Drosophila species function(ed) in meiotic drive, or whether some fraction may play other roles, such as sexual selection or chromatin compaction, which have been the traditional hypotheses for SNBP function. Relatedly, given the high turnover of SNBPs the authors observe and the fact that some melanogaster-essential SNBPs are younger genes, would they like to comment on whether the subsets of SNBPs involved in drive/suppression vs. chromatin packaging/sperm traits/Wolbachia defense are likely to differ from across fly species? The reviewer raises an excellent point. In our revised discussion, we now speculate that different SNBPs might have distinct functions. For example, the same subset of SNBPs is subject to gene amplification and loss whereas other SNBPs are subject to less turnover. Moreover, even this stable set of SNBPs evolves rapidly, including in the montium group of species that have undergone dramatic SNBP loss. As the reviewer suggests, sperm competition or pressures from Wolbachia toxins might be is a driving force for sperm evolution. We discuss these possibilities and conclude in our discussion: “Our findings do not rule out the possibility that forces other than meiotic drive are also important for driving the rapid evolution and turnover of SNBP genes in Drosophila species.

      What do the authors make of the lower isoelectric points for a few of the SNBPs (e.g., CG31010 with pI = 4.77 in Table 1)? These proteins have identifiable HMG box domains, so is the pI driven lower by other parts of the protein sequence?

      We thank the reviewer for raising this point. We found that the pI of HMG domains can range from 6 to 12. Thus, the pI is driven by both HMG domains and other parts of proteins. We now include the pI of the whole SNBP protein and the HMG domain alone in Table 1. We do not have enough biochemical information to speculate on how these differences could alter SNBP function.

      __3. For readers less familiar with the field, it may help to spell out (e.g., on p. 6) why the authors consider ProtA/B to be important for fertility. Some of the previous papers on these genes describe them as dispensable - though the present authors are correct that these previous studies do detect fertility defects of various magnitudes under some conditions.

      __

      We agree with the reviewer. Previous studies are in disagreement about the importance of ProtA/ProtB for male fertility- while no significant effects were seen under standard fertility assays, sperm exhaustion conditions (mating with excess females) did reveal fertility effects. We have now added these references and discussed ProtA/ProtB more fully in our revision.

      On p. 9, paragraph 2, the data showing that "six different SNBP genes underwent 11 independent degeneration events in the montium group" are shown in Fig. 6A, not 5A.

      Thank you. This has been fixed in our revision.

      5. The summary Table 2 is useful, but I wonder whether including relative levels of expression and dN/dS in addition to ordinal rankings might help clarify. For instance, if there were a drop off in mean expression level between the 5th and 6th most highly expressed SNBP, this wouldn't be evident from the table.

      We agree with this suggestion and have now added this information.

      In Fig. 3, I like the use of the clean CG31010 figure in panel A to illustrate the circular representations. In addition, though, it might be useful to show Prot's graph at this same, larger size, since it's the most complicated and will likely be most closely examined.

      We agree with this suggestion and have now amended this figure in line with the reviewer’s suggestion.

      In Fig. 4, the end of the legend says that the species tree is shown "on the right," but it's on the left in the figure.

      Thank you. This has been fixed in our revision.

      __CROSS-CONSULTATION COMMENTS • I agree with both Reviewers 2 and 3 that the title could be changed to be a bit more tentative. I'd had this thought as well.

      __

      We agree with this suggestion. We have now amended this title to “Expansion and loss of sperm nuclear basic protein genes in Drosophila correspond with genetic conflicts between sex chromosomes.”

      • I agree with Reviewer 2 that the fertility assay could be conducted with a larger sample size and a better control in order to be better compared with how the authors described other published fertility phenotypes for SNBPs. For the control, crossing the deletion line to y w (or w1118) and using the resulting heterozygotes (KO/+) would be better than using the mutation over the balancer chromosome (KO/CyO). We agree with both suggestions. We now compare fertility between KO/KO and KO/+ males in sperm exhaustion assays. Our more stringent fertility assays find no evidence of CG30056 role in male fertility, strengthening our previous findings. We have now added the motivation for the new assays and the new results to our Revision.

      • I agree with Reviewer 3's third bullet point about spending a bit more time on the different possible roles that SNBPs could play in spermatids. (This is a more eloquent version of my review point #1.)

      We have now expanded our discussion of other possibilities in our revision.

      • I agree in principle with Reviewer 3's first bullet point about examining whether SNBP evolution correlates with changes in sperm morphology, but this feels like it could be a whole, fascinating study on its own, while this manuscript is already packed with data. I'd welcome the authors' thoughts about this in discussion, but wouldn't personally require a formal analysis of this to be added prior to publication.

      We also agree that this would be an interesting test. However, we are not able to do the test due to the scarcity of sperm phenotype data in Drosophila. We also think that our original version unintentionally downplayed this possibility. Our revised discussion makes clear that the rapid evolution of some Drosophila SNBP genes may be driven by sperm competition, just as in mammals, and influence the evolution of sperm morphologies.

      __Reviewer #1 (Significance (Required)):

      This study describes an important conceptual advancing in our understanding of the evolution and potential functions of sperm nuclear basic proteins (SNBPs) in Drosophila, which stands in interesting contrast to the functional roles of equivalent proteins in primates. It should be of broad interest to biologists studying spermatogenesis, meiotic drive, and genome evolution, both in and out of Drosophila. __

      We thank the reviewer for their positive appraisal.

      __ To contextualize the work, paternal DNA is typically compacted during spermatogenesis. This process involves the replacement of histones with other small, positively charged proteins in a sequential order, ending with protamines that bind DNA in mature sperm. In Drosophila, work over the last two decades (largely from the labs of R. Renkawitz-Pohl, B. Loppin and B. Wakimoto) has identified more than a dozen sperm nuclear basic proteins that localize to condensing/condensed spermatid nuclei. Two interesting observations have been that many of these proteins are dispensable for male fertility, and the proteins vary in their degree of evolutionary conservation. Recent work from Eric Lai's lab (J Vedanayagam et al. 2021, Nat Ecol Evol) showed that in D. simulans and sister species, at least one of these SNBP genes (Prot) underwent gene amplification and now acts in those species as a meiotic driver. This finding suggested the hypothesis, tested thoroughly in the present study, that the rapidly evolving SNBP gene family could be involved in causing or suppressing meiotic drive. Consistent with this idea, the authors here find that SNBP genes expand in copy number more frequently when they move from autosomes to sex chromosomes (consistent with the idea that they may cause or contribute to drive), and that otherwise well-conserved SNBP genes are lost in a group of species in which sex chromosome meiotic drive is not expected to occur. These findings are based on a thorough and well conducted phylogenomic and molecular evolutionary analysis of SNBPs across dozens of Drosophila species. Overall, this work generates exciting new hypotheses about the function of SNBPs and should be widely read both within and outside of the field.

      __

      We are grateful for the reviewer’s accurate summary of our work and its significance. We share the reviewer’s excitement and expect that more studies will explore the new function of SNBPs in multiple taxa soon.

      Keyword describing my field of expertise: Drosophila, molecular evolution, reproduction, genetics, genome evolution.

      __Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      The paper describes interesting patterns on the evolution of Drosophila SNBP genes, and proposes a very interesting explanation, namely, that meiotic drive is the main evolutionary force behind these patterns. Some of these observations have recently been made by other authors in a single case (the Dox genes in D. simulans), but not in the scale and breadth of the present ms. The ms combines an extensive investigation of available genomes with expert analysis, and new experimental data. In particular, the finding that the ancestral Y became incorporated into de X in montium species is very exciting, and may provide a smoking gun for the explanation proposed by the authors. Overall, I think it is a very good paper. I do have several criticisms and suggestions that may help to improve it.

      __

      We are grateful for the positive comments of the reviewer and for their constructive criticism and suggestions, which we have incorporated into our revision.

      __The paper has a speculative side that it almost unavoidable given its novelty and breadth. I do not see this as a problem per se, but I think the uncertain/unsupported/problematic points should be more openly presented to the readers. The main cases I noted are:

      1. The title of the ms states that "Genetic conflicts between sex chromosomes drive expansion and loss of sperm nuclear basic protein genes in Drosophila", but the evidence is somewhat circumstantial, and the patterns may be explained also by other known phenomena (e.g., demasculinization of the sex chromosomes; below). I think the tone of the end of the Introduction reflects more faithfully the strength of the evidence ("Thus, we conclude that rapid diversification of SNBP genes might be largely driven by genetic conflicts between sex chromosomes in Drosophila."). I understand the temptation of writing a bold title, but I think it is a bit misleading in the present case. I.e., it would be desirable that the title conveys the uncertainties of the data and their interpretation. __

      We agree with this suggestion. We have now amended this title to “Expansion and loss of sperm nuclear basic protein genes in Drosophila correspond with genetic conflicts between sex chromosomes.”

      However, we also want to highlight that de-masculinization of the X chromosome cannot explain the observed amplification and loss patterns of SNBP genes, except in cases of sex chromosome fusions. We now highlight the de-masculinization hypothesis for the latter case, but still strongly favor the genetic conflicts hypothesis.

      "In contrast, we found no instances of pseudogenization or subsequent translocation to the X chromosome of SNBP genes that are still preserved on their original autosomal locations or involved in chromosome fusions between autosomes (0/16). This difference is highly significant (Fig 5 and Table S11; 3:5 versus 0:16, Fisher's exact test, P=0.03). " Readers should be warned that this pattern can also be explained by the well-known demasculinization of X chromosomes (e.g., Sturgill et al. Nature 2007, 450, 238-241)

      We agree with this point and thank the reviewer for pointing this out. We now expressly raise the ‘de-masculinization of X chromosomes’ as one potential explanation of the pattern we observe here.

      "Indeed, no meiotic drive has been documented in the montium species even though it is rampant in many other Drosophila lineages [38]." Two remarks here: a) the authors should make clear that they are referring to sex-chromosome meiotic drive. b) I think the evidence is much weaker than the sentence implies. Sex-chromosome meiotic drive is known in less than 20 Drosophila species, scattered throughout the phylogeny. As far as I know all cases were discovered by accident, so the sampling is biased towards model species (e.g., the obscura group, which was very popular around 1930-1960). So we do not know the true frequency of sex-ratio meiotic drive among Drosophila species, nor, say, if it is more common in the Drosophila or Sophophora species, if it is suspiciously absent in the montium group (as suggested by the authors), etc. I think these uncertainties should be acknowledged or, perhaps, given the weakness of the argument, the sentence should be deleted or attenuated.

      We agree with this comment and have now removed this argument in our revision.

      __ "X-Y chromosome fusions eliminate the extent of meiotic drive and may lead to the degeneration of otherwise conserved SNBP genes, whose functions as drive suppressors are no longer required. Thus, unlike in mammals, sex chromosome-associated meiotic drive appears to be the primary cause of SNBP evolutionary turnover in Drosophila species." The authors found that in the montium species the ancestral Y became incorporated into de X chromosome, and that montium species seem to have an inordinate amount of SNBP gene losses. They combine these two observations by suggesting that these SNBP became dispensable or deleterious because they originally were involved in XY meiotic drive. I think many readers will think that males in montium species are X/0, whereas in fact in all of them carry a Y chromosome (just, in most cases, more gene poor than "normal" Y-chromosomes). I do not think this is a fatal flaw for the explanation proposed by the authors, but certainly is a difficulty that should be acknowledged.

      __

      We agree with this point. It was not our intention to suggest that montium group males are X/O, but this could be misinterpreted as we originally stated. We now add a clarification that montium group males still harbor a Y chromosome, which is missing most ancestrally Y-linked genes.

      __Problems/suggestions with experiments and data analysis

      1. There is a section titled "CG30056 is universally retained in Drosophila but dispensable for male fertility in D. melanogaster". In this section and in the figures, it is stated, "Although CG30056 is the most conserved SNBP we surveyed, we found no clear difference in offspring number between heterozygous controls and homozygous knockout males (Fig 2B). (...) We found either no or weak evidence of fertility impairments in two different crosses with homozygous CG30056 knockout males.". I think the fertility data are weak for the purpose of the authors, and I strongly suspect that this conclusion is wrong. Let me explain why. At other passages of the ms, the authors classify the SNPB genes in three groups. (i) essential/important for male fertility: "Three genes (Mst77F, Prtl99C and ddbt) are essential for male fertility while knockdown or knockout of two other SNBP genes (ProtA, and ProtB) leads to significant reduction in male fertility [27-30, 32]." (ii) genes that do not appear to impair male fertility at all. (iii) untested. CG30056 was in the last group, and hence the authors produced knockouts, tested their effect in male fertility, and concluded that it belongs to the second group. Now, look at Fig. 3B. The numbers of tested males are too small (it seems to range from 3 to 10), and male fertility is known to be a very noisy phenotype (as shown by the huge scatter in the authors' data). Furthermore, two different knockouts were tested, and both were nominally less fertile than the controls, and in one of them the difference is statistically significant. Taken at the face value, the knockouts seem to be perhaps ~25% less fertile than the controls. Another potentially big problem is that the "control males" actually carry visible dominant mutants (the balancers CyO or SM6) which certainly reduce their fitness, whereas the experimental males are wild-type for these mutants. Without the detrimental effect of these visible mutants in the controls, the difference to the CG30056 knockouts will probably be even larger. Note that the fertility effects of the genes ProtA, and ProtB (a.k.a. "Mst35B") , which the authors put in group "essential/important for male fertility" would not had been detected if assayed as the CG30056 gene: Tirmarche et al (2014; the reference cited by the authors) stated that: "In fact, the impact of Mst35B on male fertility was only revealed when mutant males were allowed to mate with a large excess of virgin females (1 for 10; Figure 3F) but not with a 1:1 sex ratio (not shown). " The authors' fertility test did not used this type of challenge. My general impression is that the fertility effects of CG30056 may actually be similar to ProtA and ProtB. I think the authors should do a proper fertility test of CG30056, or remove this section. Another possibly useful approach would be to classify the SNPB genes in those essential for male fertility and those that are not essential, because "experimentally speaking" this is a safer distinction (e.g., the fertility testes reported by other authors may also had been quick tests). Since these genes only function in sperm and are under purifying selection (otherwise they would have been lost; also, all have dN/dS We are very appreciative of the many important points raised by the reviewer. Rather than removing this conclusion, which is not central to our paper, we have now performed additional, well-controlled experiments to address the reviewer’s concerns, which we summarize below:

      2. We agree with the reviewer that it is easier classification to identify SNBP genes that are essential for male fertility versus those that are not.

      3. We also agree with the reviewer and now include more details about earlier studies to highlight that ProtA/ProtB fertility effects were only revealed in a sperm exhaustion setting.
      4. We agree with the reviewer’s suggestion and have now included sample sizes for all our experiments in a new supplementary Table (Supplementary file 8).
      5. We agree with the reviewer that a comparison between KO/KO and KO/Bal males is non-ideal given that Balancer chromosomes carry many deleterious mutations. We now include new experiments in our revision that compare KO/KO and KO/wt chromosomes.
      6. We agree with the reviewer that standard fertility assays may be too noisy to detect subtle fertility effects. We therefore now carry out much more stringent fertility assays under sperm exhaustion conditions with a male: female ratio of 1:10 and at least 10 males tested per genotype Despite this higher stringency, we detect no difference in fertility between KO/KO males and KO/wt controls for CG30056 (>10 males were tested for each). Thus, our original conclusion is even stronger that CG30056 has no detectable effect on male fertility. We have not tested the possibility of sperm storage or precedence being affected in our assays. However, we do believe that the finding that one of the best conserved and retained SNBP genes has no detectable effect on male fertility is an important conclusion which greatly increases the impact of our study, especially since most fertility-essential genes are either young or not universally conserved. We hope these changes will satisfy the reviewer's concerns about this section of our paper.

      "Our phylogenomic analyses also highlighted one Drosophila clade- the montium group of species (including D. kikkawai)- which suffered a precipitous loss of at least five SNBP genes that are otherwise conserved in sister and outgroup species (Fig 3). (...) Given our hypothesis that autosomal SNBP genes might be linked to the suppression of meiotic drive (above), we speculated that the loss of these genes in the montium group of Drosophila species may have coincided with reduced genetic conflicts between sex chromosomes in this clade." The montium data is an important part of the paper. I think the authors should test the statistical significance of this pattern.

      We appreciate the reviewer’s suggestion. However, we are unable to perform the statistical tests suggested for technical reasons. We note that three loss events occurred in the ancestor of D. montium species, while two happened in the ancestors of most D. montium species. Since it’s hard to estimate the evolutionary rates using these internal branches, we can’t directly compare them to other branches using statistics. However, in response to the reviewer’s comments, we now more clearly contrast the fate of SNBPs between D. montium species and other melanogaster group species, noting that three of five genes lost in the montium group are retained in all other melanogaster group species.

      __Other points:

      1. "The five remaining SNBP genes (Mst33A, CG30056, CG31010, CG34269, and CG42355) remain cytologically uncharacterized [30]." I think it will be interesting if the authors look at other potentially useful resources: Vibranovski et al papers which looked at gene expression in mitotic, meiotic and post-meiotic cells (_https://mnlab.uchicago.edu/sppress/index.php), and the papers by several labs on testis single-cell transcriptomic data (Witt et al 2021 PLOS Genetics. 17(8):e1009728 ; Nat Commun. 2021;12: 892). These may provide additional clues on the function of SNBP genes. There is also a recent report on sperm proteome (doi: _https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.02.14.480191) __

      We are grateful to the reviewer for this suggestion. We now add the data from single-cell expression analyses from Witt et al. in Table 1-figure supplement 1. We found most SNBPs are expressed at late spermatocytes and early spermatids, although CG30056 is primarily expressed in late spermatids, whereas CG34269 is expressed earlier in late spermagonia. The data from Vibrranovski et al. also show similar patterns but don’t have four of these genes, including CG34269. The data from Mahadevaraju et al. are from larva testes, and lack some critical stages during spermatogenesis. Thus, we only report the data from Witt et al.

      We also surveyed the proteome data as the reviewer suggested, but we only found 3 SNBPs (ProtA, ProtB, and Prtl99C) in the data. This did not include, Mst77F, which is the most highly expressed (see Table 2) and well-studied SNBP, so we suspect the proteomic study might be biased toward proteins from sperm tails. Therefore, we decide not to include this analysis.

      ____ "Our inability to detect homologs beyond the reported species does not appear to result from their rapid sequence evolution. Indeed, abSENSE analyses [45] support the finding that Prtl99C, Mst77F, Mst33A, Tpl94 and CG42355 were recently acquired in Sophophora within 40 MYA. For example, the probability of a true homolog being undetected for Prtl99C and Mst77F is 0.07 and 0.18 (using E-value=1), respectively (Table S1, Methods)." This should be complemented by synteny analysis.

      It may not have been clear from our original version that we did perform synteny analyses for all SNBP genes. We have now restated this more clearly in our revision.

      I found the following sentence unclear: "However, we could only ascribe a sex chromosomal linked location for species if no data was available from either BUSCO genes or females (only males and mixed-sex flies)."

      We modified the sentence to make it clearer: “However, we could not ascribe a sex-chromosomal linked location of a contig to either the X or Y chromosome in cases where there was no linkage information from BUSCO genes and no read data available from females, only from males and mixed-sex flies.”

      "Using the available assemblies with Illumina-based chromosome assignment, we surprisingly found that most ancestrally Y-linked genes are not linked to autosomes as was previously suggested [by Dupim et al 2018] (Fig 6A)."

      The new result of X-linkage is exciting, but the sentence is not exact: Dupim et al 2018 made clear that they could only separate X/A from Y-linkage. E.g., the legend of their Fig 3: "Phylogeny and gene content of the Y chromosome in the montium subgroup. "M" means amplification only in males (i.e., Y-linkage), whereas "MF" means amplification in both sexes (autosomal or X-linkage)."

      We are grateful to the reviewer for this correction. We now modified the sentence to make clear that Dupim et al had “showed that many ancestrally Y-linked genes are present in females because of possible relocation to other chromosomes in the montium group.”

      "The most parsimonious explanation for these findings is a single translocation of most of the Y chromosome to the X chromosome via a chromosome fusion in the ancestor of the montium group of species. Afterward, some of these genes relocated back to the Y chromosome in some species (Fig S6; Supplementary text)." Explanations for this pattern of "return to the Y" have been extensively discussed and tested in Dupim et al 2008 (see their section "Why genes seem to return to the Y chromosome after Y incorporations?" ) The available evidence strongly suggests that it is not a case of relocation to the Y.

      We thank the reviewer for raising this point. However, our conclusions disagree slightly with those from Dupim et al. 2018, in part because of additional sequencing in this clade. Dupim et al. suggested the possibility that most Y chromosomal loci duplicated to other chromosomes in the ancestor of the D. montium clade, following which each species degenerated either Y-linked or autosomal copies of genes. If this was the case, Y-linked copies should have diverged from X-linked copies since the ancestor of the D. montium clade. In contrast to this expectation, our phylogenetic analyses found that D. kikkawai Y-linked PRY is more closely related to X-linked PRY in all other related species (Figure 6- figure supplement 1). This result is much less parsimoniously explained by the ancient duplication event proposed by Dupim et al. and is more consistent with a ‘return-to-Y’ that we propose. We also make clear that, unlike PRY, we can’t differentiate the two hypotheses in the case of kl-2.

      Fig 6B suggests that the authors assembled the "translocated Y" in D. triauraria. However, no direct data or account for this assembly is provided. Please clarify.

      This was not our assembly. We searched all publicly available assemblies in the montium group and found one assembly (NCBI accession GCA_014170315.2) that assembled all ancestral Y-linked regions. We now clarify this in our revision.

      __ "Why would meiotic drive only influence Drosophila, but not mammalian, SNBP evolution? One important distinction may arise from the timing of SNBP transcription. In D. melanogaster, SNBP genes are transcribed before meiosis but translated after meiosis [29, 43, 57]. Thus, SNBP transcripts from a single allele, e.g., Xlinked allele, are inherited and translated by all sperm, regardless of which chromosomes they carry. Consequently, they can act as meiotic drivers by causing chromatin dysfunction in sperm without the allele, e.g., Y-bearing sperm." During spermatogenesis Drosophila haploid cells actually are syncytial, which has interesting consequences for the evolution of male genes (Raices et al, Genome Res. 1115-1122, 2019). This may be relevant for the present paper.

      __

      We thank the reviewer for this suggestion. We now gratefully include this citation in our revision.

      __Reviewer #2 (Significance (Required)):

      see above __ __Reviewer #3 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      This manuscript by Chang & Malik consider the evolution of HMG-box-containing sperm nuclear basic proteins (SNBPs) across Drosophila species in phylogenetic context.

      Previous work in mammals had highlighted fast evolution of proteins involved in chromatin remodeling during spermatogenesis. Here, the authors provide evidence for widespread positive selection and likely involvement in genetic conflict in a set of proteins with analogous functions in Drosophila. Amongst other findings, the authors highlight biased amplification of SNBP paralogs on sex chromosomes along several Drosophila lineages, a tendency towards loss/pseudogenization following translocation onto a sex chromosome, and an intriguing concerted SNBP loss event in the montium group where parts of the Y chromosome have become fused to the X, thus nullifying the chance that genetic conflicts can play out via distorted segregation of sex chromosomes. The authors suggest that, taken together, their findings support widespread of SNBPs involvement (as instigators and repressors) in meiotic drive. Overall, I found the manuscript to be well written and thorough in its exploration of the evolutionary dynamics of SNBPs in this clade.

      __

      We thank the reviewer for the accurate summary and the kind comments.

      __Below, I have highlighted some aspects that I think would benefit from further attention, none of them major.

      • Following their exploration of patterns of SNBP evolution in Drosophila, the authors highlight support of their data for genetic conflict between sex chromosomes. They also rightly acknowledge that other evolutionary drivers such as sperm competition might also play a role in, for example, fast evolution of certain SNBPs. Yet those (not mutually exclusive) alternatives are never pitted directly against each other. The focus is firmly on exploring the support for the sex chromosome genetic conflict model. Given that the authors highlight Drosophila as a great model in part because of its well characterized sperm biology (including comparative morphology), I wondered why the authors had not made an explicit attempt to see if SNBP evolution covaries with aspects of sperm morphology across Drosophila. __

      We do agree with the reviewer that it will be very interesting to test whether SNBP evolution covaries with sperm morphology in Drosophila. However, data on sperm morphology is scant in most Drosophila species. Indeed, this trait has only been well studied in clades with heteromorphic (different-sized) sperm but we agree this will be an exciting topic to consider in the future.

      We also clarify better in our revised discussion that our analyses do not rule out a role for sperm competition or sperm morphology in driving the evolution of at least some SNBP genes. We note that a subset of SNBP genes undergo gene amplifications and loss, but most SNBP genes evolve rapidly including in species with gene loss. Thus, the meiotic drive hypothesis is not to the exclusion of other hypotheses.

      • The most intriguing part of the manuscript for me was the exploration of SNBP fate in the montium group, where the authors find evidence for an ancestral fusion event between the X and parts of the Y chromosome. The loss of SNBPs is certainly consistent with the conflict model but I was wondering to what extent this lineage is characterized more broadly by unusual evolution at the chromosomal level. Is there simply a lot of upheaval in montium, with more frequent gain/loss across the board? How specific is SNBP loss in the context of other orthologous groups? This could be investigated by looking at retention of other genes in other orthologous groups (in montium and some other control group) or perhaps by looking at synteny conservation. This is a good suggestion. Using the same methodology as used in this paper, we found that very few D. melanogaster essential genes (2000) are lost in any single species we surveyed here (unpublished data). However, we have not carried out similar analyses for all genes; given vastly different rates of evolution, this would be a significant undertaking. Thus, we are not able to make a direct comparison between SNBP genes and a control group, that would include other testes-specific or fertility-essential genes. Instead, we highlight the fact that since we identify SNBPs using syntenic analyses, we have known that the neighboring genes of SNBPs are much better conserved than the SNBP genes themselves in the montium group species.

      • In introducing SNBPs, the authors focus on their role as packaging agents. Clearly, SNBPs do package the genome in the sense that they bind to DNA and lead to reduced chromosome volume. But is this all packaging for packaging's sake (as portrayed by the sperm shape hypothesis)? Or is the situation a bit more nuanced, where condensation leads to a reduction of volume but also to a shutdown of transcription, protection from DNA damage, etc.? I think the focus on packaging alone is somewhat limiting when it comes to imagining how these proteins might act in the context of genomic conflicts. The authors may want to broaden their description of SNBPs in the Introduction accordingly. We completely agree with the reviewer and are currently exploring these possibilities in follow-up studies on SNBP function. However, it is fair to add that this hypothesis has not been well-recognized, and we, therefore, prefer to include it in our revised Discussion rather than Introduction. However, we also think that SNBP packaging function might be targeted by Wolbachia-encoded toxins, speeding up their evolution (revised Discussion). We think there are many molecular possibilities for SNBPs.

      • The authors highlight that some SNBPs are expressed in mature sperm whereas others are transition proteins. The evidence for positive selection chiefly comes from the latter group (and "undefined" proteins that could also be transition proteins). Can the authors comment on whether this is expected/unexpected? Along the same lines, the authors highlight differences between Drosophila and mammals when it comes to the timing of transcription/translation during meiosis, suggesting that meiotic drive can happen in Drosophila because alleles are expressed early and can exert an effect after meiosis regardless of whether the associated locus is present in the gamete. I wonder how this relates, if at all, to the author's finding that transition SNBPs are more likely to be part of conflicts (as indicated by positive selection signals) compared to SNBPs in mature sperm. We thank the reviewer for this comment. We expect that many genes expressed explicitly in spermatogenesis, including SNBP genes, would be under position selection, regardless of whether they are associated with X-Y conflicts. The positive selection signals could come from either X-Y conflicts, sperm competition, or conflicts with Wolbachia; we now discuss all of these in the Discussion.

      In contrast, the amplification and loss of a subset of Drosophila SNBPs are more likely associated with X-Y conflicts. We note that known SNBPs retained in mature sperm are more likely to be subject to amplification than known transition proteins.

      Regarding the timing of expression, it is true that transition SNBPs act earlier in spermatogenesis than SNBPs retained in mature sperm. However, for the meiotic drive hypothesis to apply, all it requires is for SNBP expression to precede sperm individualization, which it does for most SNBPs, including transition proteins.

      • ____ It is not entirely clear from the text (and also e.g. Table S4) how dN and dS (and subsequently dN/dS) where calculated. I presume as a single estimate across the whole phylogeny? If so, how heterogeneous is dN/dS across the phylogeny and can the authors identify specific branches on which selective regimes are different? A branch-level analysis should be better powered than the site-level analysis the authors present, which requires repeated selection on the same set of sites to get a strong enough signal. A branch-specific assessment of evolution would be particularly valuable in combination when combined with the assessment of amplifications/losses. We thank the reviewer for this question. The reviewer is correct. We estimated dN and dS in Supplementary file 4 across the whole phylogeny. We conducted branch tests for the amplification of tHMG only in the Dsim clade (Supplementary file 11).

      We are interested in how SNBP amplification happened across species, but we need better gene annotation for their structure in many of these 19 independent cases. Moreover, we hope to combine these with transcriptomic analyses with detailed sequence analyses to reveal how the event happened and how gene conversion, gene duplication, and mutations affect their evolution. Each of these analyses requires extensive additional resources and analyses, and we feel are beyond the scope of this current paper.

      • The authors suggest that young SNBPs are more likely to encode essential, non-redundant male fertility functions (p7, third paragraph). I'm not sure whether this generalization is appropriate given the small sample. Tpl94D is as young as Mst77F/Prtl99C, tHMG and CG14835 homologs have been lost along different lineages and most of the events are in a single lineage leading up to D. kikkawai. Do the authors really feel that this generalization is warranted? We agree with the reviewer. However, it is striking that the known fertility essential genes are either young or not universally conserved. We have therefore reworded our conclusion to make this contrast more accurate.__

      • How do the sex-chromosomal amplifications differ in sequence from the ancestral autosomal copies? The authors suggest that the sex chromosomal copies might be involved in meiotic drive? Does the sequence offer a function as to how? (e.g. loss of charged residues/DNA-binding capacity?__

      These are good questions. We do not know mechanistically how the sex-chromosome amplifications may cause meiotic drive. We did not observe the loss of positive charge or HMG domain in most sex-chromosomal amplified copies (Supplementary file 3). Our current working hypothesis is that they compete for the DNA binding with autosomal SNBP, and might interact with other proteins, e.g., heterochromatin proteins, to disturb sperm function. How they might function to cause meiotic drive is an active area of investigation in our and other labs.

      • I think it would be nice to have a final table/figure to summarizing the different lines of evidence for all the genes in Table 1 (i.e. positive selection yes/no, amplification in some lineages yes/no, sex chromosome translocations yes/no), for different lineages, including whether any of the HMG-box genes are unlikely to act as SNBPs. We agree with this suggestion. We have now significantly revised and added to Table 2 to include this added information.

      • The evidence the authors present is often consistent with genetic conflicts between sex chromosomes. Is it cogent? Arguably not (since direct tests of the mechanism are provided. I would therefore suggest a more cautious title than one stating that conflicts drive expansion and loss of SNBPs. We agree with all three reviewers and have amended our title to highlight the correlation. We also discuss other possibilities that can drive SNBP evolution in our revised Discussion.

      __Typographical errors etc.:

      • P3. First paragraph: "One of the driving forces ... " I found this sentence a bit odd in terms of causality (changes in composition being portrayed as a force that leads to selection) __

      We thank the reviewer for pointing out the confusing construction. We modified the sentence to “The positive selection of SNBPs results in changes to their amino acid composition.”

      - P3. Second paragraph: should be "HMG-box" rather than "HMB-box"

      Fixed.

      - P3. Fourth paragraph "..., consistent with the observation in mammals". I think "consistent" should be reserved for two observations that speak to the same phenomenon. SNBPs could evolve with no evidence for positive selection in Drosophila and that wouldn't exactly be "inconsistent" with mammals. It would just be different.

      Fixed. We changed “consistent with” to “similar to”.

      ____- P5. Fifth paragraph: should be "in the PAML package" rather than "in PAML package"

      Fixed.

      - P9. Second paragraph: "... montium group (Fig 5A)...)" should be Fig 6A.

      Fixed.

      __CROSS-CONSULTATION COMMENTS I have not much to add. The other reviews seem fair and well-informed from my somewhat-outside perspective. I don't know how tricky/time-consuming the suggested additional fly mating experiments are but want to note that, in general, I'm loath to "punish" authors of principally bioinformatic work for including some experiments. If experimental shortcomings can be addressed with appropriate caveats, that should be an option, as should removal of experimental data that - by the experts - would be considered too preliminary.

      __

      We thank the reviewer for their support. However, we felt that improved experiments on CG30056 role in fertility could broaden the scope of this paper, despite the additional time and labor commitment. We have now finished these experiments and they do reinforce our original conclusions with much greater support.

      __It is my policy to sign my reviews.

      Tobias Warnecke

      Reviewer #3 (Significance (Required)):

      I'm not enough of an expert in the field of SNBPs to assess the level of advance provided by this study. __

    2. Note: This preprint has been reviewed by subject experts for Review Commons. Content has not been altered except for formatting.

      Learn more at Review Commons


      Referee #3

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      This manuscript by Chang & Malik consider the evolution of HMG-box-containing sperm nuclear basic proteins (SNBPs) across Drosophila species in phylogenetic context.

      Previous work in mammals had highlighted fast evolution of proteins involved in chromatin remodeling during spermatogenesis. Here, the authors provide evidence for widespread positive selection and likely involvement in genetic conflict in a set of proteins with analogous functions in Drosophila. Amongst other findings, the authors highlight biased amplification of SNBP paralogs on sex chromosomes along several Drosophila lineages, a tendency towards loss/pseudogenization following translocation onto a sex chromosome, and an intriguing concerted SNBP loss event in the montium group where parts of the Y chromosome have become fused to the X, thus nullifying the chance that genetic conflicts can play out via distorted segregation of sex chromosomes.

      The authors suggest that, taken together, their findings support widespread of SNBPs involvement (as instigators and repressors) in meiotic drive.

      Overall, I found the manuscript to be well written and thorough in its exploration of the evolutionary dynamics of SNBPs in this clade.

      Below, I have highlighted some aspects that I think would benefit from further attention, none of them major.

      • Following their exploration of patterns of SNBP evolution in Drosophila, the authors highlight support of their data for genetic conflict between sex chromosomes. They also rightly acknowledge that other evolutionary drivers such as sperm competition might also play a role in, for example, fast evolution of certain SNBPs. Yet those (not mutually exclusive) alternatives are never pitted directly against each other. The focus is firmly on exploring the support for the sex chromosome genetic conflict model. Given that the authors highlight Drosophila as a great model in part because of its well characterized sperm biology (including comparative morphology), I wondered why the authors had not made an explicit attempt to see if SNBP evolution covaries with aspects of sperm morphology across Drosophila.
      • The most intriguing part of the manuscript for me was the exploration of SNBP fate in the montium group, where the authors find evidence for an ancestral fusion event between the X and parts of the Y chromosome. The loss of SNBPs is certainly consistent with the conflict model but I was wondering to what extent this lineage is characterized more broadly by unusual evolution at the chromosomal level. Is there simply a lot of upheaval in montium, with more frequent gain/loss across the board? How specific is SNBP loss in the context of other orthologous groups? This could be investigated by looking at retention of other genes in other orthologous groups (in montium and some other control group) or perhaps by looking at synteny conservation.
      • In introducing SNBPs, the authors focus on their role as packaging agents. Clearly, SNBPs do package the genome in the sense that they bind to DNA and lead to reduced chromosome volume. But is this all packaging for packaging's sake (as portrayed by the sperm shape hypothesis)? Or is the situation a bit more nuanced, where condensation leads to a reduction of volume but also to a shutdown of transcription, protection from DNA damage, etc.? I think the focus on packaging alone is somewhat limiting when it comes to imagining how these proteins might act in the context of genomic conflicts. The authors may want to broaden their description of SNBPs in the Introduction accordingly.
      • The authors highlight that some SNBPs are expressed in mature sperm whereas others are transition proteins. The evidence for positive selection chiefly comes from the latter group (and "undefined" proteins that could also be transition proteins). Can the authors comment on whether this is expected/unexpected? Along the same lines, the authors highlight differences between Drosophila and mammals when it comes to the timing of transcription/translation during meiosis, suggesting that meiotic drive can happen in Drosophila because alleles are expressed early and can exert an effect after meiosis regardless of whether the associated locus is present in the gamete. I wonder how this relates, if at all, to the author's finding that transition SNBPs are more likely to be part of conflicts (as indicated by positive selection signals) compared to SNBPs in mature sperm.
      • It is not entirely clear from the text (and also e.g. Table S4) how dN and dS (and subsequently dN/dS) where calculated. I presume as a single estimate across the whole phylogeny? If so, how heterogeneous is dN/dS across the phylogeny and can the authors identify specific branches on which selective regimes are different? A branch-level analysis should be better powered than the site-level analysis the authors present, which requires repeated selection on the same set of sites to get a strong enough signal. A branch-specific assessment of evolution would be particularly valuable in combination when combined with the assessment of amplifications/losses.
      • The authors suggest that young SNBPs are more likely to encode essential, non-redundant male fertility functions (p7, third paragraph). I'm not sure whether this generalization is appropriate given the small sample. Tpl94D is as young as Mst77F/Prtl99C, tHMG and CG14835 homologs have been lost along different lineages and most of the events are in a single lineage leading up to D. kikkawai. Do the authors really feel that this generalization is warranted?
      • How do the sex-chromosomal amplifications differ in sequence from the ancestral autosomal copies? The authors suggest that the sex chromosomal copies might be involved in meiotic drive? Does the sequence offer a function as to how? (e.g. loss of charged residues/DNA-binding capacity?)
      • I think it would be nice to have a final table/figure to summarizing the different lines of evidence for all the genes in Table 1 (i.e. positive selection yes/no, amplification in some lineages yes/no, sex chromosome translocations yes/no), for different lineages, including whether any of the HMG-box genes are unlikely to act as SNBPs.
      • The evidence the authors present is often consistent with genetic conflicts between sex chromosomes. Is it cogent? Arguably not (since direct tests of the mechanism are provided. I would therefore suggest a more cautious title than one stating that conflicts drive expansion and loss of SNBPs.

      Typographical errors etc.:

      • P3. First paragraph: "One of the driving forces ... " I found this sentence a bit odd in terms of causality (changes in composition being portrayed as a force that leads to selection)
      • P3. Second paragraph: should be "HMG-box" rather than "HMB-box"
      • P3. Fourth paragraph "..., consistent with the observation in mammals". I think "consistent" should be reserved for two observations that speak to the same phenomenon. SNBPs could evolve with no evidence for positive selection in Drosophila and that wouldn't exactly be "inconsistent" with mammals. It would just be different.
      • P5. Fifth paragraph: should be "in the PAML package" rather than "in PAML package"
      • P9. Second paragraph: "... montium group (Fig 5A)...)" should be Fig 6A.

      Referees cross-commenting

      I have not much to add. The other reviews seem fair and well-informed from my somewhat-outside perspective. I don't know how tricky/time-consuming the suggested additional fly mating experiments are but want to note that, in general, I'm loath to "punish" authors of principally bioinformatic work for including some experiments. If experimental shortcomings can be addressed with appropriate caveats, that should be an option, as should removal of experimental data that - by the experts - would be considered too preliminary.

      It is my policy to sign my reviews.

      Tobias Warnecke

      Significance

      I'm not enough of an expert in the field of SNBPs to assess the level of advance provided by this study.

    3. Note: This preprint has been reviewed by subject experts for Review Commons. Content has not been altered except for formatting.

      Learn more at Review Commons


      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      The paper describes interesting patterns on the evolution of Drosophila SNBP genes, and proposes a very interesting explanation, namely, that meiotic drive is the main evolutionary force behind these patterns. Some of these observations have recently been made by other authors in a single case (the Dox genes in D. simulans), but not in the scale and breadth of the present ms. The ms combines an extensive investigation of available genomes with expert analysis, and new experimental data. In particular, the finding that the ancestral Y became incorporated into de X in montium species is very exciting, and may provide a smoking gun for the explanation proposed by the authors. Overall, I think it is a very good paper. I do have several criticisms and suggestions that may help to improve it.

      The paper has a speculative side that it almost unavoidable given its novelty and breadth. I do not see this as a problem per se, but I think the uncertain/unsupported/problematic points should be more openly presented to the readers. The main cases I noted are:

      1. The title of the ms states that "Genetic conflicts between sex chromosomes drive expansion and loss of sperm nuclear basic protein genes in Drosophila", but the evidence is somewhat circumstantial, and the patterns may be explained also by other known phenomena (e.g., demasculinization of the sex chromosomes; below). I think the tone of the end of the Introduction reflects more faithfully the strength of the evidence ("Thus, we conclude that rapid diversification of SNBP genes might be largely driven by genetic conflicts between sex chromosomes in Drosophila."). I understand the temptation of writing a bold title, but I think it is a bit misleading in the present case. I.e., it would be desirable that the title conveys the uncertainties of the data and their interpretation.
      2. "In contrast, we found no instances of pseudogenization or subsequent translocation to the X chromosome of SNBP genes that are still preserved on their original autosomal locations or involved in chromosome fusions between autosomes (0/16). This difference is highly significant (Fig 5 and Table S11; 3:5 versus 0:16, Fisher's exact test, P=0.03). " Readers should be warned that this pattern can also be explained by the well-known demasculinization of X chromosomes (e.g., Sturgill et al. Nature 2007, 450, 238-241)
      3. "Indeed, no meiotic drive has been documented in the montium species even though it is rampant in many other Drosophila lineages [38]." Two remarks here: a) the authors should make clear that they are referring to sex-chromosome meiotic drive. b) I think the evidence is much weaker than the sentence implies. Sex-chromosome meiotic drive is known in less than 20 Drosophila species, scattered throughout the phylogeny. As far as I know all cases were discovered by accident, so the sampling is biased towards model species (e.g., the obscura group, which was very popular around 1930-1960). So we do not know the true frequency of sex-ratio meiotic drive among Drosophila species, nor, say, if it is more common in the Drosophila or Sophophora species, if it is suspiciously absent in the montium group (as suggested by the authors), etc. I think these uncertainties should be acknowledged or, perhaps, given the weakness of the argument, the sentence should be deleted or attenuated.
      4. "X-Y chromosome fusions eliminate the extent of meiotic drive and may lead to the degeneration of otherwise conserved SNBP genes, whose functions as drive suppressors are no longer required. Thus, unlike in mammals, sex chromosome-associated meiotic drive appears to be the primary cause of SNBP evolutionary turnover in Drosophila species." The authors found that in the montium species the ancestral Y became incorporated into de X chromosome, and that montium species seem to have an inordinate amount of SNBP gene losses. They combine these two observations by suggesting that these SNBP became dispensable or deleterious because they originally wee involved in XY meiotic drive. I think many readers will think that males in montium species are X/0, whereas in fact in all of them carry a Y chromosome (just, in most cases, more gene poor than "normal" Y-chromosomes). I do not think this is a fatal flaw for the explanation proposed by the authors, but certainly is a difficulty that should be acknowledged.

      Problems/suggestions with experiments and data analysis

      1. There is a section titled "CG30056 is universally retained in Drosophila but dispensable for male fertility in D. melanogaster". In this section and in the figures, it is stated, "Although CG30056 is the most conserved SNBP we surveyed, we found no clear difference in offspring number between heterozygous controls and homozygous knockout males (Fig 2B). (...) We found either no or weak evidence of fertility impairments in two different crosses with homozygous CG30056 knockout males.". I think the fertility data are weak for the purpose of the authors, and I strongly suspect that this conclusion is wrong. Let me explain why. At other passages of the ms, the authors classify the SNPB genes in three groups.
        • (i) essential/important for male fertility: "Three genes (Mst77F, Prtl99C and ddbt) are essential for male fertility while knockdown or knockout of two other SNBP genes (ProtA, and ProtB) leads to significant reduction in male fertility [27-30, 32]."
        • (ii) genes that do not appear to impair male fertility at all.
        • (iii) untested. CG30056 was in the last group, and hence the authors produced knockouts, tested their effect in male fertility, and concluded that it belongs to the second group. Now, look at Fig. 3B. The numbers of tested males are too small (it seems to range from 3 to 10), and male fertility is known to be a very noisy phenotype (as shown by the huge scatter in the authors' data). Furthermore, two different knockouts were tested, and both were nominally less fertile than the controls, and in one of them the difference is statistically significant. Taken at the face value, the knockouts seem to be perhaps ~25% less fertile than the controls. Another potentially big problem is that the "control males" actually carry visible dominant mutants (the balancers CyO or SM6) which certainly reduce their fitness, whereas the experimental males are wild-type for these mutants. Without the detrimental effect of these visible mutants in the controls, the difference to the CG30056 knockouts will probably be even larger. Note that the fertility effects of the genes ProtA, and ProtB (a.k.a. "Mst35B") , which the authors put in group "essential/important for male fertility" would not had been detected if assayed as the CG30056 gene: Tirmarche et al (2014; the reference cited by the authors) stated that: "In fact, the impact of Mst35B on male fertility was only revealed when mutant males were allowed to mate with a large excess of virgin females (1 for 10; Figure 3F) but not with a 1:1 sex ratio (not shown). " The authors' fertility test did not used this type of challenge. My general impression is that the fertility effects of CG30056 may actually be similar to ProtA and ProtB. I think the authors should do a proper fertility test of CG30056, or remove this section. Another possibly useful approach would be to classify the SNPB genes in those essential for male fertility and those that are not essential, because "experimentally speaking" this is a safer distinction (e.g., the fertility testes reported by other authors may also had been quick tests). Since these genes only function in sperm and are under purifying selection (otherwise they would have been lost; also, all have dN/dS < 1 ), they all most likely affect male fertility to some extent. In case the section on male fertility stays, it will be necessary to provide more details. How many males were crossed for each genotype? In some cases in Fig 2B, it seems that as low as 3, but it may be data superposition in the graph. Please provide the raw data in the supplementary material.
      2. "Our phylogenomic analyses also highlighted one Drosophila clade- the montium group of species (including D. kikkawai)- which suffered a precipitous loss of at least five SNBP genes that are otherwise conserved in sister and outgroup species (Fig 3). (...) Given our hypothesis that autosomal SNBP genes might be linked to the suppression of meiotic drive (above), we speculated that the loss of these genes in the montium group of Drosophila species may have coincided with reduced genetic conflicts between sex chromosomes in this clade." The montium data is an important part of the paper. I think the authors should test the statistical significance of this pattern.

      Other points:

      1. "The five remaining SNBP genes (Mst33A, CG30056, CG31010, CG34269, and CG42355) remain cytologically uncharacterized [30]." I think it will be interesting if the authors look at other potentially useful resources: Vibranovski et al papers which looked at gene expression in mitotic, meiotic and post-meiotic cells (https://mnlab.uchicago.edu/sppress/index.php), and the papers by several labs on testis single-cell transcriptomic data (Witt et al 2021 PLOS Genetics. 17(8):e1009728 ; Nat Commun. 2021;12: 892). These may provide additional clues on the function of SNBP genes. There is also a recent report on sperm proteome (doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.02.14.480191)
      2. "Our inability to detect homologs beyond the reported species does not appear to result from their rapid sequence evolution. Indeed, abSENSE analyses [45] support the finding that Prtl99C, Mst77F, Mst33A, Tpl94 and CG42355 were recently acquired in Sophophora within 40 MYA. For example, the probability of a true homolog being undetected for Prtl99C and Mst77F is 0.07 and 0.18 (using E-value=1), respectively (Table S1, Methods)." This should be complemented by synteny analysis.
      3. I found the following sentence unclear: "However, we could only ascribe a sex chromosomal linked location for species if no data was available from either BUSCO genes or females (only males and mixed-sex flies)."
      4. "Using the available assemblies with Illumina-based chromosome assignment, we surprisingly found that most ancestrally Y-linked genes are not linked to autosomes as was previously suggested [by Dupim et al 2018] (Fig 6A)." The new result of X-linkage is exciting, but the sentence is not exact: Dupim et al 2018 made clear that they could only separate X/A from Y-linkage. E.g., the legend of their Fig 3: "Phylogeny and gene content of the Y chromosome in the montium subgroup. "M" means amplification only in males (i.e., Y-linkage), whereas "MF" means amplification in both sexes (autosomal or X-linkage)."
      5. "The most parsimonious explanation for these findings is a single translocation of most of the Y chromosome to the X chromosome via a chromosome fusion in the ancestor of the montium group of species. Afterward, some of these genes relocated back to the Y chromosome in some species (Fig S6; Supplementary text)." Explanations for this pattern of "return to the Y" have been extensively discussed and tested in Dupim et al 2008 (see their section "Why genes seem to return to the Y chromosome after Y incorporations?" ) The available evidence strongly suggests that it is not a case of relocation to the Y.
      6. Fig 6B suggests that the authors assembled the "translocated Y" in D. triauraria. However, no direct data or account for this assembly is provided. Please clarify.
      7. "Why would meiotic drive only influence Drosophila, but not mammalian, SNBP evolution? One important distinction may arise from the timing of SNBP transcription. In D. melanogaster, SNBP genes are transcribed before meiosis but translated after meiosis [29, 43, 57]. Thus, SNBP transcripts from a single allele, e.g., Xlinked allele, are inherited and translated by all sperm, regardless of which chromosomes they carry. Consequently, they can act as meiotic drivers by causing chromatin dysfunction in sperm without the allele, e.g., Y-bearing sperm." During spermatogenesis Drosophila haploid cells actually are syncytial, which has interesting consequences for the evolution of male genes (Raices et al, Genome Res. 1115-1122, 2019). This may be relevant for the present paper.

      Significance

      see above

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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Chang and Malik present a comprehensive evolutionary analysis of sperm nuclear basic proteins (SNBPs) in Drosophila. In addition, they provide a preliminary functional characterization of one such protein (CG30056) and describe a newly discovered X-Y chromosomal fusion in the Drosophila montium species group. All of these findings are interesting and important, but the headline from this study is the well-supported possibility that SNBPs, or at least a large fraction of them, function in suppressing X vs. Y chromosome meiotic drive. While this hypothesis is challenging to test experimentally, the authors provide strong correlational evidence that SNBPs are associated with drive by documenting these proteins' rapid evolution. This rapid evolution takes the form of sequence changes (as predicted by coevolution between drivers and suppressors of drive), gene amplification in cases when SNBPs move to sex chromosomes (consistent with the SNBP becoming a potential agent of drive for its new "home chromosome"), and gene loss in species with X-Y chromosome fusions (in which drive is not predicted to occur).

      Overall, this is an excellent, comprehensive study. The phylogenetic and genomic analyses are first-rate (and one of the first to make use of the new 101 Drosophila genomes); the logic is very well explained; conclusions are supported by multiple lines of evidence; the writing and figures are clear and accessible; and, the findings are fascinating. It's a good sign that it is easy to imagine several experiments one could do to follow up on this study, but I do not feel any are required in revision, as the manuscript is comprehensive as is. Thus, I have just a few minor points the authors may wish to consider in making revisions and a few suggestions for clarity/typos.

      1. I would be interested in whether the authors think that all SNBPs in a given Drosophila species function(ed) in meiotic drive, or whether some fraction may play other roles, such as sexual selection or chromatin compaction, which have been the traditional hypotheses for SNBP function. Relatedly, given the high turnover of SNBPs the authors observe and the fact that some melanogaster-essential SNBPs are younger genes, would they like to comment on whether the subsets of SNBPs involved in drive/suppression vs. chromatin packaging/sperm traits/Wolbachia defense are likely to differ from across fly species?
      2. What do the authors make of the lower isoelectric points for a few of the SNBPs (e.g., CG31010 with pI = 4.77 in Table 1)? These proteins have identifiable HMG box domains, so is the pI driven lower by other parts of the protein sequence?
      3. For readers less familiar with the field, it may help to spell out (e.g., on p. 6) why the authors consider ProtA/B to be important for fertility. Some of the previous papers on these genes describe them as dispensable - though the present authors are correct that these previous studies do detect fertility defects of various magnitudes under some conditions.
      4. On p. 9, paragraph 2, the data showing that "six different SNBP genes underwent 11 independent degeneration events in the montium group" are shown in Fig. 6A, not 5A.
      5. The summary Table 2 is useful, but I wonder whether including relative levels of expression and dN/dS in addition to ordinal rankings might help clarify. For instance, if there were a drop off in mean expression level between the 5th and 6th most highly expressed SNBP, this wouldn't be evident from the table.
      6. In Fig. 3, I like the use of the clean CG31010 figure in panel A to illustrate the circular representations. In addition, though, it might be useful to show Prot's graph at this same, larger size, since it's the most complicated and will likely be most closely examined.
      7. In Fig. 4, the end of the legend says that the species tree is shown "on the right," but it's on the left in the figure.

      Referees cross-commenting

      • I agree with both Reviewers 2 and 3 that the title could be changed to be a bit more tentative. I'd had this thought as well.
      • I agree with Reviewer 2 that the fertility assay could be conducted with a larger sample size and a better control in order to be better compared with how the authors described other published fertility phenotypes for SNBPs. For the control, crossing the deletion line to y w (or w1118) and using the resulting heterozygotes (KO/+) would be better than using the mutation over the balancer chromosome (KO/CyO).
      • I agree with Reviewer 3's third bullet point about spending a bit more time on the different possible roles that SNBPs could play in spermatids. (This is a more eloquent version of my review point #1.)
      • I agree in principle with Reviewer 3's first bullet point about examining whether SNBP evolution correlates with changes in sperm morphology, but this feels like it could be a whole, fascinating study on its own, while this manuscript is already packed with data. I'd welcome the authors' thoughts about this in discussion, but wouldn't personally require a formal analysis of this to be added prior to publication.

      Significance

      This study describes an important conceptual advancing in our understanding of the evolution and potential functions of sperm nuclear basic proteins (SNBPs) in Drosophila, which stands in interesting contrast to the functional roles of equivalent proteins in primates. It should be of broad interest to biologists studying spermatogenesis, meiotic drive, and genome evolution, both in and out of Drosophila.

      To contextualize the work, paternal DNA is typically compacted during spermatogenesis. This process involves the replacement of histones with other small, positively charged proteins in a sequential order, ending with protamines that bind DNA in mature sperm. In Drosophila, work over the last two decades (largely from the labs of R. Renkawitz-Pohl, B. Loppin and B. Wakimoto) has identified more than a dozen sperm nuclear basic proteins that localize to condensing/condensed spermatid nuclei. Two interesting observations have been that many of these proteins are dispensable for male fertility, and the proteins vary in their degree of evolutionary conservation. Recent work from Eric Lai's lab (J Vedanayagam et al. 2021, Nat Ecol Evol) showed that in D. simulans and sister species, at least one of these SNBP genes (Prot) underwent gene amplification and now acts in those species as a meiotic driver. This finding suggested the hypothesis, tested thoroughly in the present study, that the rapidly evolving SNBP gene family could be involved in causing or suppressing meiotic drive. Consistent with this idea, the authors here find that SNBP genes expand in copy number more frequently when they move from autosomes to sex chromosomes (consistent with the idea that they may cause or contribute to drive), and that otherwise well-conserved SNBP genes are lost in a group of species in which sex chromosome meiotic drive is not expected to occur. These findings are based on a thorough and well conducted phylogenomic and molecular evolutionary analysis of SNBPs across dozens of Drosophila species. Overall, this work generates exciting new hypotheses about the function of SNBPs and should be widely read both within and outside of the field.

      Keyword describing my field of expertise: Drosophila, molecular evolution, reproduction, genetics, genome evolution.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      1. General Statements

      We thank the reviewers from Review Commons for their thorough reviews of our manuscript entitled, “The role of Limch1 alternative splicing in skeletal muscle function.” We were delighted by the many supportive comments of all three reviewers calling our study a “definite advance in our understanding of developmentally-regulated splice isoform transitions that are disease relevant”, “good comprehensive study with convincing results, the design of the experiments is good, and the conclusions are solid”, and “The article is well written, and I favor the publication of this [article] with minor revisions.”

      The reviews include comments on the interest in identifying the mechanism of action of mLIMCH1 in skeletal muscle function such as “ [The study] presents multiple new tools to study mLimch1 and identifies a possible role for mLIMCH1 in calcium regulation, but stops short of identifying the mechanism by which this regulation occurs.” While we agree that how the skeletal muscle-specific isoform of LIMCH1 affects calcium handling is of interest, we respectfully suggest that this manuscript describe previously unknown biology that will be of interest to investigators in different fields including muscle physiology, alternative splicing regulation, and skeletal muscle pathology in myotonic dystrophy. All experiments in this manuscript are performed in vivo using skeletal muscle tissues from animals lacking the isoform of Limch1 that is expressed only in skeletal muscle and is normally induced after birth. Comparisons were made to age-matched wild-type control animals, often litter mates. The results establish the functional significance of the LIMCH1 protein and particularly the muscle-specific isoform in skeletal muscle through extensive analysis of LIMCH1 localization and the impact of mLIMCH1 knockout on muscle strength, force generation, calcium handling and the disease relevance of this splicing transition in myotonic dystrophy type 1. Please review the comments of all three reviewers who were quite favorable to the significance of the work and overall favorable to its publication. Below, we clarify and describe additional data that has, and will be added to the manuscript to address all comments of the reviewers.

      2. Description of the planned revisions

      Reviewer 1

      “Page 6 - data not shown. The point of conservation is not essential to this story, but the authors should either include a table or panel with that data, or remove the data not shown statement. Given the putative relevance to DM1, it might be preferable to include data to support the developmental transition in human data.”

      We have removed the “data not shown” statement as suggested and we highlighted the importance of conservation of the induction of a skeletal muscle isoform of LIMCH1 after birth as a strong indication of functional importance for the isoform. We agree that data showing the conserved LIMCH1 splicing transition in human skeletal muscle development will support this point. We will include RT-PCR analysis of LIMCH1 splicing in fetal and adult human skeletal muscle RNA in Figure 6 to support the reversion of splicing to the fetal pattern observed in DM1. The results will complement the normal Limch1 splicing transition in mice (Figure 1) and the normal and aberrant fetal splicing patterns shown for unaffected and DM1 adult skeletal muscle, respectively (Figure 6).

      3. Description of the revisions that have already been incorporated in the transferred manuscript

      Reviewer 1

      “Figure 4 - The authors do a nice experiment to show the localization of Limch1 and raise an antibody to detect the muscle specific isoform. The data seem to show that the muscle-specific isoform localizes to the sarcolemma, and this staining is largely lost in the mutant mice. By contrast, one could infer that the cytoplasmic signal in the WT comes from the ubiquitous isoform (which accounts for 30-40% of the Limch1 expression). This is consistent with the validation in Fig. 2. However, the authors in the text claim this experiment reveals an increased distribution throughout the myofiber, or a more even signal distribution in the cytoplasm, and that the uLimch1 cannot recapitulate mLimch1 localization. Fig. 2 suggests that total levels of Limch1 are increased (as noted by the authors in the discussion). Given that the muscle-specific isoform localizes to the sarcolemma, and the ubiquitous isoform is presumably sarcoplasmic, it isn't clear to me that there is any change in localization per se. What the authors show is just that the signal at the sarcolemma is lost, and if one compares the intensity in the right-hand plots in Fig. 4B, they are comparable in the sarcoplasmic region. It seems likely there is more of the ubiquitous isoform, and what is seen here is just how that isoform localizes. The quantification the authors perform in D would likely show this strong difference in the localization of the muscle isoform. If the authors redo this quantification, exclude the signal at the sarcolemma and normalize to the average pixel intensity in the fiber, do they still see a difference? I am not convinced that the "clustering" of the signal of the ubiquitous, cytoplasmic isoform is in any way changed. Given the difference in the two proteins, I also would not expect that the ubiquitous isoform could compensate for loss of the muscle isoform, and would not expect it to "recapitulate" the muscle-isoform localization.”

      We agree that Figure 4 and the explanation in the text was not clear and we thank the reviewer for pointing this out. We have addressed this concern by modifying the figure as suggested by the reviewer and clarifying the description in the results section. The main point, that is recognized by the reviewer but needed clarification, is that the mLIMCH1 isoform preferentially localizes to the sarcolemma and the uLIMCH1 isoform is preferentially cytoplasmic. In the HOM Limch1 6exKO myofibers, the increased cytoplasmic signal is due to the increased level of uLIMCH1 as shown by the western blot in Figure 2. The reviewer is correct that there is not a “change in localization of isoforms per se”. We clarified this point to highlight the differential localization of the uLIMCH1 and mLIMCH1 isoforms within the sarcolemma vs. the sarcoplasm. The revision of the plot profile in Figure 4B and the analysis of the standard deviation of signal in Figure 4D demonstrates the stark difference in staining observed between the HOM Limch1 6exKO and WT myofibers when stained with a pan-LIMCH1 antibody. The signal intensity plot profile from sarcolemma to sarcolemma (Figure 4B) indicates that the uLIMCH1 isoform is not “mis-localized” upon mLIMCH1 knockout as we originally (mis)-stated. Upon mLIMCH1 knockout, there is increased uLIMCH1 expression compared to WT myofibers. Considering this in combination with the sarcolemma preference of mLIMCH1 (Figure 4E) and the significant loss of signal in the sarcolemma region in Limch1 6exKO myofibers, we conclude that in HOM Limch1 6exKO myofibers, uLIMCH1 is primarily localized throughout the sarcoplasm.

      Reviewer 1 (optional)

      “Experiments looking more closely at LIMCH1 co-localization with other proteins at the sarcolemma or the sufficiency of the muscle-specific region to localize would also be useful (for example, can the muscle-specific region localize GFP to the membrane in cells?).”

      We performed immunofluorescence microscopy of LIMCH1 with several skeletal muscle-relevant proteins but did not observe: (1) disruptions of normal structures in HOM Limch1 6exKO compared to WT myofibers or (2) colocalization that helped clarify any mechanistic role of mLIMCH1 or uLIMCH1. Therefore this data was not included in the original manuscript. In regard to the suggestion on the sufficiency of the muscle-specific region to localize to the sarcolemma region, we had previously generated a plasmid to express a fluorescent protein fused to the protein encoded by the six skeletal muscle-specific exons of LIMCH1 but it failed to localize to the sarcolemma. In collaboration with protein structural experts at Baylor College of Medicine, we analyzed the skeletal muscle-specific region of LIMCH1 and found it to be entirely disordered without known homologs. It appears that this region has no secondary structure but when expressed within the entire LIMCH1 protein which has conserved domains (calponin homology, LIM, coiled-coil regions) and upon protein binding, it is possible for the region to adopt a structure facilitating its binding in the sarcolemma region. Therefore we believe that regions common to both isoforms are required in combination with the muscle-specific region for preferential localization to the sarcolemma.

      Reviewer 1 (minor comments)

      “In the Figure 3 legend, the order of the descriptions for B-C and D-E is switched. The order of the panels matches the text, but the legend switches the description of the force-frequency curves (shown in B & C but labeled as D & E), with the description of the rate of relaxation and contraction plots (shown in D and E but labeled as B and C in the legend).”

      We fixed this error and thank the reviewer for pointing it out.

      “The scale in Figure 4, panel B between the top and bottom plots is not the same, so it is difficult to compare, particularly for the panels on the right. See comment above.”

      In addition to clarifying uLIMCH1’s localization upon mLIMCH1 knockout within the text, we added figure titles above the plot profile which will clarify the different plot profiles for the reader. In regard to the comment about the scale of the plot profile, we have addressed this by re-scaling the two plot profiles on the right in Figure 4B. These plot profiles now share the same scale, which is advantageous because this plot profile better emphasizes the stark difference in signal observed between the sarcolemma and sarcoplasm in WT myofibers that is lacking in HOM Limch1 6exKO myofibers.

      Reviewer 2

      “Figure 6A: There is a discrepancy between gene structures and splicing isoforms shown in Fig. 1 vs Fig. 6. There are differences in spacing between exons, and there appear to be six exons in the differentially regulated region in Fig 1, but seven exons in Fig 6. Perhaps this is a difference between human and mouse genes? Does the human gene actually regulate seven exons in this region, rather than six exons in the mouse? In both figures the gene is labeled as Limchi1, and both figures indicate that the ubiquitous isoform lacks exons 9-14. Please clarify.”

      The reviewer is correct that the human mLIMCH1 isoform contains seven exons that are skeletal muscle-specific compared with the six exons that are skeletal muscle-specific in the mouse. The seven human exons encode 544 amino acids with 65% homology with the mouse segment. We have clarified this in the figure legend and text. Exons 9-14 are shown in Figure 6B since this diagrams the mouse gene.

      “The methods section on RT-qPCR and RNA splicing presumably refers to analysis of mouse tissues. What is the origin of the human DM1 RNA-seq data?”

      We obtained adult human DM1-affected and non-affected skeletal muscle autopsy samples from colleagues and the NDRI and performed RNA-sequencing at Baylor College of Medicine. The RNA-seq has not yet been published, but we include the data for LIMCH1 to demonstrate the dramatic change in the alternative splicing pattern in DM1 skeletal muscle tissue. This has been clarified in the methods section.

      “Perhaps the word "activity" should be deleted in the following sentence: "The sole study investigating the function of LIMCH1 characterized it as an actin stress fiber associated protein that binds non-muscle myosin 2A (NM2A) activity to regulate focal adhesion formation."

      We thank the reviewer for pointing this out and we have removed this word.

      Reviewer 3

      “The diminution of the muscle force production in Limch16exKO is not correlated with a change in morphology of the myofibers in H&E and picrosirius stainings (Fig S2). Did the authors look at other skeletal muscles, fiber type, size, or different time points? (The age of the mouse and the name of the skeletal muscle used for the histology could be included in the results sections or figure legend).”

      As suggested by Reviewer 3, we have included additional histological data in Supplementary Figure 2. In addition to the histology at 10-12 weeks of age, the new data includes histology of multiple skeletal muscle tissues (quadriceps, EDL, soleus) at one year of age. The histology of Limch1 6exKO tissue at different time points showed no morphological differences (centralized nuclei or fibrosis) consistent with no change in muscle weight which led us to emphasize the significant effect of mLIMCH1 knockout on skeletal muscle function in the absence of muscle loss or overt structural changes. In regard to fiber-type, we have included histology of both the EDL (fast-twitch) and soleus (slow-twitch) and even after one year, we observe no gross morphological differences. Additionally, we analyzed the force production of both the EDL and soleus (Figure 3) with the fiber-type predominance of these tissues in mind and found decreased force generation in both tissues. We included the types of skeletal muscle tissue analyzed and the age of the mice in Supplementary Figure 2 as per the reviewer’s suggestion.

      “The authors performed RNAseq analysis in the skeletal muscle of the KO mouse (Fig 2B). What is the result of this experiment? Is the KO muscle transcriptome different or similar to control muscles?”

      We conducted RNA-sequencing on tissue from HOM Limch1 6exKO and WT controls and the results were disappointing showing minor differences that did not contribute to understanding the phenotype. We used this data only to show the loss of the six exons in Fig. 2B, however, we decided that RT-PCR analysis was the better assay since it shows not only that the exons are not included but also that exons 8 and 15 are spliced correctly, which is not apparent using the RNA-seq displayed on the genome browser.

      4. Description of analyses that authors prefer not to carry out

      Reviewer 1 (____Both points listed as optional)

      “If the authors perform TEM, can they see defects in t-tubules or organization of the sarcoplasmic reticulum, that are not visible by light microscopy?”

      We considered conducting TEM to investigate sarcomeric, T-tubule, or sarcolemma changes in myofibers derived from HOM Limch1 6exKO mice, but we concluded that it would most likely be of limited use. We do not think that T-tubule structural changes will be observed via TEM primarily due to the challenges of finding significant changes compared to WT controls in which one can always find abnormal structures. In our experience and the experience of our collaborator (Dr. Rodney) the disruptions must be dramatic to distinguish from the noncanonical structures often observed. Thus, we do not plan on conducting TEM to identify defects in the T-tubules.

      “If the muscle-specific isoform is transfected or transduced into differentiated myotubes, how does this affect calcium dynamics in the culture system?”

      While an interesting idea, we do not plan on conducting this experiment for multiple reasons. One issue is that all of our data is derived from in vivo analysis or from isolated myofibers and our concern is that the relatively immature state of myotubes in culture will provide a poor comparison to isolated myofibers. Therefore, we believe that it will be difficult to add meaningful data to the calcium data presented in Figure 5 through this experiment. Additionally, we have observed mis-localization of the overexpressed uLIMCH1 and mLIMCH1 in C2C12 cells that we believe would add too many caveats for meaningful interpretation of the results, regardless of the effects on calcium dynamics

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      Referee #3

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      In this manuscript, the authors have generated a knockout mouse model of a skeletal muscle-specific splice variant isoform of Limch1. These KO mice present skeletal muscle force production and calcium handling defects. These results could explain why the deficiency in splicing in myotonic dystrophy1 can lead to skeletal muscle defects.

      Overall, this is a good comprehensive study with convincing results, the design of the experiments is good, and the conclusions are solid. The article is well written, and I favor the publication of this article with minor revisions.

      Issues that I think the authors should clarify:

      • The diminution of the muscle force production in Limch16exKO, is not correlated with a change in morphology of the myofibers in H&E and picrosirius stainings (Fig S2). Did the authors look at other skeletal muscles, fiber type, size, or different time points? (The age of the mouse and the name of the skeletal muscle used for the histology could be included in the results sections or figure legend)
      • The authors performed RNAseq analysis in the skeletal muscle of the KO mouse (Fig 2B). What is the result of this experiment? Is the KO muscle transcriptome different or similar to control muscles?

      Significance

      In this manuscript, the authors have generated a knockout mouse model of a skeletal muscle-specific splice variant isoform of Limch1. These KO mice present skeletal muscle force production and calcium handling defects. These results could explain why the deficiency in splicing in myotonic dystrophy1 can lead to skeletal muscle defects.

      Overall, this is a good comprehensive study with convincing results, the design of the experiments is good, and the conclusions are solid. The article is well written, and I favor the publication of this article EMBO journal with minor revisions.

      Issues that I think the authors should clarify:

      • The diminution of the muscle force production in Limch16exKO, is not correlated with a change in morphology of the myofibers in H&E and picrosirius stainings (Fig S2). Did the authors look at other skeletal muscles, fiber type, size, or different time points? (The age of the mouse and the name of the skeletal muscle used for the histology could be included in the results sections or figure legend)
      • The authors performed RNAseq analysis in the skeletal muscle of the KO mouse (Fig 2B). What is the result of this experiment? Is the KO muscle transcriptome different or similar to control muscles?
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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary

      This manuscript continues the Cooper lab's analysis of the role of alternative splicing in muscle development and function. Here they report an intriguing alternative splicing difference between fetal and adult tissues involving 6 consecutive exons in the LIMCHI1 gene that are included predominantly in adult muscle to encode a longer isoform of the protein. Moreover, by CRISPR/Cas9-mediated deletion of these exons in mouse models, they show that muscle deficient in the longer LIMCHI1 protein isoform exhibits grip strength weakness in vivo and decreased force generation ex vivo. The mechanistic details remain to be investigated, but evidence so far suggests an intrinsic defect in muscle contraction, perhaps related to aberrant calcium handling, without obvious histopathology or muscle loss. Finally, these new findings may have important implications for human patients with myotonic dystrophy type 1 that typically exhibit defects in MBNL-regulated splicing events, because the authors show (1) that patient muscle poorly expresses the muscle isoform of LIMCHI1, due to inappropriate skipping of the exons, and (2) that mice with knockout of MBNL proteins also predominantly skip these exons.

      Major comments

      1. The major conclusions of the manuscript are clear and convincing -a muscle-specific cluster of 6 exons in the LIMCHI1 gene whose splicing is regulated directly or indirectly by MBNL splicing factor(s); loss of these exons compromises muscle strength; and these exons are poorly spliced in muscle of myotonic dystrophy patients. The data for these conclusions is strong.
      2. The authors do consider alternative explanations where appropriate. For example, they speculate in the discussion that muscle defects could be due not only to loss of the muscle-specific isoform, but possibly also due to the corresponding increase in expression of the non-muscle-specific isoform.
      3. Figure 6A: There is a discrepancy between gene structures and splicing isoforms shown in Fig. 1 vs Fig. 6. There are differences in spacing between exons, and there appear to be six exons in the differentially regulated region in Fig 1, but seven exons in Fig 6. Perhaps this is a difference between human and mouse genes? Does the human gene actually regulate seven exons in this region, rather than six exons in the mouse? In both figures the gene is labeled as Limchi1, and both figures indicate that the ubiquitous isoform lacks exons 9-14. Please clarify.

      Minor comments

      1. The methods section on RT-qPCR and RNA splicing presumably refers to analysis of mouse tissues. What is the origin of the human DM1 RNA-seq data?
      2. p. 4: Perhaps the word "activity" should be deleted in the following sentence: "The sole study investigating the function of LIMCH1 characterized it as an actin stress fiber associated protein that binds non-muscle myosin 2A (NM2A) activity to regulate focal adhesion formation."
      3. Other than the issue raised above regarding LIMCHI1 gene structure, the figures are clearly presented.

      Significance

      The results in this study could have important implications both regarding muscle function and regulation of alternative splicing. The demonstration of a muscle-specific isoform of LIMCHI1 is a novel finding that suggests previously unknown functions of the protein in muscle contraction. This raises intriguing questions as to how this alternative domain impacts muscle function through cooperation with other domains previously predicted (or shown) to interact with actin and non-muscle myosin. Regarding splicing, co-regulation of exon clusters is a poorly understood phenomenon that could be the subject of future interesting studies. Both issues could be relevant to understanding defects in human patients with myotonic dystrophy type I.

      The work would be of interest to scientists studying muscle function as well as those studying alternative splicing. Both groups would probably be intrigued by these results but might consider the results to be relatively preliminary, need more mechanistic details in the future.

      Expertise: I have extensive experience in analysis of alternative splicing regulation. My knowledge of specific techniques to evaluate muscle function is more limited. Although the experiments on muscle function seem clear and convincing to me, I admit that I am not an expert on those methods and could have missed an important point.

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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary

      In their paper "The role of Limch1 alternative splicing in skeletal muscle function," Penna and colleagues report a muscle-specific isoform of Limch1 and investigate its function in skeletal muscle. They show that a muscle-specific isoform of Limch1 is expressed preferentially in mature muscle, and demonstrate that animals mutant for this isoform have reduced grip strength and force generation. Notably, although muscle structure and T-tubules are structurally not affected, mutant muscle shows evidence of disrupted calcium handling. Limch1 is also misspliced in DM1 and Mbnl1/2 double mutant mice, suggesting the muscle isoform is disease relevant and regulated by MBNL.

      Major comments

      Page 6 - data not shown. The point of conservation is not essential to this story, but the authors should either include a table or panel with that data, or remove the data not shown statement. Given the putative relevance to DM1, it might be preferable to include data to support the developmental transition in human data.

      Figure 4 - The authors do a nice experiment to show the localization of Limch1, and raise an antibody to detect the muscle specific isoform. The data seem to show that the muscle-specific isoform localizes to the sarcolemma, and this staining is largely lost in the mutant mice. By contrast, one could infer that the cytoplasmic signal in the WT comes from the ubiquitous isoform (which accounts for 30-40% of the Limch1 expression). This is consistent with the validation in Fig. 2. However, the authors in the text claim this experiment reveals an increased distribution throughout the myofiber, or a more even signal distribution in the cytoplasm, and that the uLimch1 cannot recapitulate mLimch1 localization. Fig. 2 suggests that total levels of Limch1 are increased (as noted by the authors in the discussion). Given that the muscle specific isoform localizes to the sarcolemma, and the ubiquitous isoform is presumably sarcoplasmic, it isn't clear to me that there is any change in localization per se. What the authors show is just that the signal at the sarcolemma is lost, and if one compares the intensity in the right-hand plots in Fig. 4B, they are comparable in the sarcoplasmic region. It seems likely there is more of the ubiquitous isoform, and what is seen here is just how that isoform localizes. The quantification the authors perform in D would likely show this strong difference in the localization of the muscle isoform. If the authors redo this quantification, exclude the signal at the sarcolemma and normalize to the average pixel intensity in the fiber, do they still see a difference? I am not convinced that the "clustering" of the signal of the ubiquitous, cytoplasmic isoform is in any way changed. Given the difference in the two proteins, I also would not expect that the ubiquitous isoform could compensate for loss of the muscle isoform, and would not expect it to "recapitulate" the muscle-isoform localization.

      OPTIONAL: It would be interesting to examine how loss of the muscle-specific Limch1 isoform results in disrupted calcium handling. This is the mechanism that is not addressed in the paper, as the authors note in the discussion. If the authors perform TEM, can they see defects in t-tubules or organization of the sarcoplasmic reticulum, that are not visible by light microscopy? Experiments looking more closely at LIMCH1 co-localization with other proteins at the sarcolemma or the sufficiency of the muscle-specific region to localize would also be useful (for example, can the muscle-specific region localize GFP to the membrane in cells?). If the muscle-specific isoform is transfected or transduced into differentiated myotubes, how does this affect calcium dynamics in the culture system? As the authors note in the discussion, identification of mLimch1 versus uLimch1 interactors would be particularly interesting, and provide insight into how this protein can affect calcium handling without impacting structure.

      Minor comments

      • a. In the Figure 3 legend, the order of the descriptions for B-C and D-E is switched. The order of the panels matches the text, but the legend switches the description of the force-frequence curves (shown in B & C but labeled as D & E), with the description of the rate of relaxation and contraction plots (shown in D and E but labeled as B and C in the legend).
      • b. The scale in Figure 4, panel B between the top and bottom plots is not the same, so it is difficult to compare, particularly for the panels on the right. See comment above.

      Significance

      This is a well-written study identifying the function of a muscle-specific isoform of LIMCH1, as well as implicating a switch in Limch1 isoform expression in DM1 models as a target of MBNL regulation. It presents multiple new tools to study mLimch1, and identifies a possible role for mLIMCH1 in calcium regulation, but stops short of identifying the mechanism by which this regulation occurs. The study is a definite advance in our understanding of developmentally-regulated splice isoform transitions that are disease relevant. The work would be of interest to scientists with specialized interests in muscle development and isoform-specific function in myogenesis, as well as more broadly of interest to clinical scientists for the possible connection to DM1.

      I am an expert in RNA regulation and muscle development.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      Manuscript number: #RC-2022-01697

      Corresponding author(s): William Roman; Edgar R. Gomes

      [The “revision plan” should delineate the revisions that authors intend to carry out in response to the points raised by the referees. It also provides the authors with the opportunity to explain their view of the paper and of the referee reports.

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      1. General Statements [optional]

      This section is optional. Insert here any general statements you wish to make about the goal of the study or about the reviews.

      We would like to thank the reviewers for their careful evaluation of our study. The goal of this work is to demonstrate that fiber type composition can be altered with exercise of in vitro muscle cultures. These findings provide an additional strategy to better mimic muscle in vitro for biological investigation and disease modelling. The reviewers’ comments will strengthen the conclusions of our study.

      In this point-by-point answer, we also include a statement on the feasibility of each comment based on preliminary work we have performed since receiving the reviews. We expect experiments can be achieved within 2 – 3 months.

      2. Description of the planned revisions

      Insert here a point-by-point reply that explains what revisions, additional experimentations and analyses are planned to address the points raised by the referees.

      *Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      The manuscript by Henning et al describes a method to induce myofiber subtype specification in vitro based on optogenetics and particle image velocimetry. The work is well performed and the manuscript is clear. The findings might be useful to the muscle community, but there are some issues which should be addressed in order to improve the quality and impact of the manuscript.

      My main concern is that the whole work is performed in murine cells. Although I appreciate that the authors have used primary myoblasts rather than cell lines, I also think that the key advantage of such in vitro platforms is the possibility to "humanise" the experiments as much as possible. In this context, the key findings of this work should be reproduced using human myoblasts. This will significantly enhance the relevance of the work. *

      Point 1.1) We thank the reviewer for his suggestion and have already performed some pilot experiments to “humanize” experiments. We infected hiPSC-derived myotubes (van der Wal et al., 2018) and human immortalized myotubes (Mamchaoui et al., 2011) with AAV9-pACAGW-ChR2-Venus-AAV. After infection, human immortalized myotubes did not express ChR2, not permitting optogenetic training on these cultures. For hiPSC-derived myotubes, the infection rate was very low and insufficient to perform a bulk analysis to evaluate the effect of long term intermittent light stimulation. Moreover, the contractile behavior of hiPSC-derived myotubes expressing ChR2 significantly differed from primary mouse myotubes. They underwent a single and slow contraction when compared to the cyclic contractions observed in mouse myotubes. This suggests that the maturation of the contractile apparatus of 2D hiPSC-derived myotubes is insufficient to perform consistent in vitro training studies.

      As such, we agree with the reviewer that reproducing our key findings with human cells would improve the relevance of this work. However, due to the experimental limitations described above, significant improvements in human myotube maturation in vitro are required to perform such experiments. We will attempt to increase infection efficiency by using another AAV serotype in hiPSC-derived myotubes but this has a low probability of solving all the technical limitations. Our work is a proof of principal that fiber type composition can be influenced in vitro through contraction stimulation. We expect these findings to be the translated to human cultures when the field has discovered the necessary protocols to push human myotube maturation.

      Feasibility: run additional tests but probability of success is low due to technical limitations.

      *Other issues: *

      1) From a methodological perspective, I think some clarifications are needed on the western blots shown in Fig 4K-L, as the pattern of Myh3 and Myh8 in both panels appear very similar. This could easily be ruled out by providing raw data/images. Please accept my apologies if this is simply caused by similar migration patterns in the gels (worth checking).

      Point 1.2) The very similar appearance of both patterns is due to the same molecular weight (220 kDA) of distinct myh isoforms. After an initial staining of western blot membranes, primary and secondary antibodies were stripped off and the membrane was subsequently re-probed using a primary and secondary antibody. We incubated stripped membranes with secondary antibodies only and observed no signal, confirming the stripping was efficient. We have updated the representative images of the Western Blot membranes in Figure 4 and included the α-actinin loading controls on which the bands are normalized to account for sarcomerogenesis (Figure 4 K-M).

      Feasibility: Accomplished

      *2) Figure 3K-L (BTX): better imaging should be performed to assess morphology of NMJ (eg. pretzel-shaped as in mature/adult NMJ?) *

      Point 1.3) We agree with the point raised by the reviewer. However, a morphological assessment of the NMJ is difficult in this in vitro system due to our inability to generate mature muscle end plates as seen in in vivo adult NMJs. We will nevertheless perform a more quantitative evaluation of BTX stainings imaged with high spatial resolution by measuring the size and shape of the AChR clusters. The technical pipeline to do this quantitative approach is already established.

      Feasibility: will be accomplished

      *3) Figure 3 N-P: Why did the authors used a relatively complex techniques such as smFISH to answer a question more simply addressable with more conventional (and perhaps less operator dependent) techniques such quantitative PCR?

      *

      Point 1.4) We agree with the reviewer that the more conventional qPCR technique would highlight similar results to the smFISH quantifications. Due to the heterogeneity of our primary myotube cultures (presence of non-muscle cell types and varying degrees of muscle cell maturation), we opted to monitor AChR expression by conserving a spatial dimension. This allows us to observe ChrnE and ChrnG expression in mature muscle cells selected to perform the contraction analysis. Nevertheless, performing a bulk RNA expression analysis would be informative to show a significant increase in AChR expression across the culture. This point will be fully addressed by qPCR assays of ChrnE and ChrnG.

      Feasibility: will be accomplished

      *Reviewer #1 (Significance (Required)):

      Nature and significance: as mentioned in the previous section, the work can be very significant if expanded to human myoblasts/myotubes, which can have different slow/fast myosin expression pattern. The work is clearly methodological/descriptive, so showing an application of this technique using diseased/mutant cells may increase its relevance even more (but I do not believe it is a key barrier to publication). *

      We thank the reviewer for his comments as the “other issues” raised will significantly improve the manuscript and will all be tackled. With regards to using human myotubes, we will attempt a few more strategies to translate our findings to human cultures, but our preliminary data suggests that many technical barriers need to be overcome to perform such experiments. Nevertheless, it is our opinion that the main contribution of this manuscript is to show that fiber switching can be achieved in vitro and that this will be routinely used in the next generation of human in vitro muscle systems.

      *

      *

      *Comparison with other methods: Similar methods have been published but not with this level of resolution.

      Expertise: muscle disease and regeneration, in vitro and in vivo models.*

      *Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)): *

      * The work presented shows that muscle stem cells isolated from 5-day-old mice can be transduced with a DNA coding for a Channelrhodopsin2-Venus which will allow the muscle cell to be excited by a light beam (475nm) and to induce the contraction of myotubes. The authors measure the speed of contraction, relaxation and fatigability of such cells as a function of a more or less long excitation time. In particular, they show that myotubes in culture, excited at a frequency of 5 Hz, 8 hours per day for 7 days are larger than unstimulated myotubes and are more resistant to fatigue. Surprisingly, they show that myotubes stimulated at the low frequency of 5Hz express the neonatal Myosin heavy chain more than the slow Myh whose expression is known in adult muscle to be specifically strong in muscle fibers stimulated at low frequency. As the authors do not apply a high stimulation frequency (100Hz) to their culture, it is difficult to conclude whether the stimulation frequency applied in the study induces a specific phenotypic specialization of the myofiber, or a more general role. In this respect, the size of the myotubes obtained after training seems to be increased, showing a hypertrophic effect on the cultured myotubes. This study does not allow us to conclude, beyond the expression of the Myh8 gene, on the “gain” of the fast-twitch specialization of the myofiber by repeated stimulation over several days. A complementary study would certainly provide elements to better understand the role of muscle fiber stimulation, apart from the trophic contribution provided in vivo by the motoneuron. If the study is well conducted, some points are nevertheless important to address before publication.*

      *Reviewer #2 (Significance (Required)): *

      * - Figures 4F/G are difficult to understand: the Myh7 signal seems much higher in trained myonuclei (F), but the histogram shows the opposite (G).*

      __Point 2.1) __We apologize for the confusion. The apparent higher Myh7 signal in trained cells in Figure 4F is due to background noise in the image. When mRNA is expressed, the smFISH probes are visible as small round dots. For clarity, we updated the representative images for the smFISH probes and highlighted the smFISH dots with arrows. We also adapted the y-axis of each graph to better represent the analysis of mRNA counts per myonuclei.

      Feasibility: Accomplished

      *- Figures 4L, the western blot shows the same increase in Myh3 and Myh8 at day 4, while the graph shows an increase at d4 only in Myh8, why? *

      Point 2.2) We have chosen another western blot to better reflect the quantification. It is important to note that we have normalized the band intensity to a-actinin instead of a house keeping gene to account for changes in sarcomerogenesis over the lifetime of the cultures. As such, although we observe an increase in Myh3 intensity, it is counter balanced by an increase in a-actinin expression. We have now added the a-actinin bands.

      - For immunocytochemistry against fMyh (Fig4 H, I) as well as for Western blots (Fig 4M, N), the authors have to provide arguments regarding the specificity of the antibodies used: some fMyh-specific antibodies recognize, Myh 3, 8, 1, 2, and 4, some only Myh 8, 1, 2, and 4, so it is quite difficult to conclude on the experiments using sc-32732 antibodies, (clone F59) which Myh are actually recognized in Western blot or immunocytochemistry.

      Point 2.3) According to the manufacturer, the sc-32732 antibody is specific for fast Myh (Myh1, 2, 4 and 6). Nevertheless, we will ensure the specificity of the sc-32732 antibody against fast Myosins by staining neonatal and adult TA/EDL muscle sections with anti-Myh3 (embryonic), anti-Myh8 (neonatal) and anti-fMyh antibodies.

      Feasibility: will be accomplished

      While 10Hz stimulation is known in vivo to increase the slow program, and Myh7 expression in adult muscles, the authors show that ex vivo this is not the case with primary myotubes, with Myh7 protein level not being upregulated in the 7 day stimulation paradigm, while on the contrary Myh8 expression is upregulated. I think it would be important to quantify the mRNA of each of the Myh genes to be sure that there is no problem with the antibodies, which could recognize several Myh proteins, in the absence of a resolving acrylamide gel allowing visualization and relative level of each isoform according to its migration. Nevertheless, this is an interesting observation that could be related to the early phases of muscle contraction in vivo. Indeed, it has been shown in rats that early postnatal development animals are essentially sedentary and whose muscles (Sol and EDL) are stimulated by short intermittent bursts similar to 10Hz (doi: 10.1111/j.0953-816X.2004.03418.x) during the first 2-3 weeks of life. This should be compatible with Myh8 expression. It would be relevant in this idea to verify that the paradigm presented leads to myotubes with a "neonatal" phenotype. Quantification of the expression level of *genes specifically expressed during the neonatal period, compared with those expressed in adult slow or fast myofibers, would enhance the conclusions drawn by the authors. *

      Point 2.4) The reviewer raises an important technical limitation of observing Myh proteins to identify fiber types due to the cross-reactivity of antibodies. Despite our best efforts to select the appropriate antibodies, we agree that investigating mRNA expression of individual Myh isoforms would strengthen the conclusion of our study. We will design specific primers and perform qPCR for distinct Myh isoforms on untrained and trained cultures.

      With regards to the “neonatal” phenotype of these in vitro cultures, this does indeed seem to be the case as the cultures transition from embryonic and neonatal myosins to adult myosins during the lifetime of the cultures.

      Feasibility: will be accomplished

      *Should we also be cautious about bulk analysis since, as shown in Figure S1, not all myotubes express ChR2? *

      Point 2.5) Although 10% of myotubes do not express ChR2, we believe that 90% of infected myotubes is sufficient for bulk analysis. We nevertheless combine in our study bulk analysis with single cell assays such as smFISH and immunofluorescence, which are in line with the bulk analyses.

      Feasibility: Accomplished

      May the authors correlate the ex vivo neonatal phenotype observed with the neonatal muscles they used to prepare myogenic stem cells?

      Point 2.6) We understand from this that the reviewer would like us to check the expression of distinct Myh isoforms in our in vitro system and compare it to neonatal muscle. We will perform Myh staining of muscle sections from 6-day old mouse pups (time of myogenic stem cell isolation) and compare the expression of Myosin heavy chains with what we observe in our in vitro cultures.

      Feasibility: will be accomplished

      Overall, we will address all the points of the reviewer. Those ensuring the specificity of antibodies used are particularly relevant. With regards to the comparison between our in vitro cultures with neonatal muscle, we believe this will help contextualize our findings with the literature.

      Reviewer #3 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      *Summary: *

      *In this work, the authors propose an in vitro model describing a strategy to alter fiber type composition of myotubes with a long-term, intermittent mechanical training. The authors present a model of myotubes transfected with an adenovirus, which makes them photosensitive; in this way, fibers contraction can be induced upon stimulation with blue LEDs. *

      *Even though ChR2 expressing myotubes have previously been used by other groups (Asano T, Ishizua T, Yawo H. Optically controlled contraction of photosensitive skeletal muscle cells. Biotechnol Bioeng. 2012 Jan;109(1):199-204), no one has ever used it in the way proposed by the authors. For this reason, this work opens new perspectives on the possible use for clinical and therapeutic purposes for this in vitro muscle system. *

      *Major comments: *

      *I believe that the authors have presented their results, conclusion and methods in a fair and clear way, so that the experiment could also be reproduced. *

      *However, I think there are some adjustments that could be done in order to improve and strengthen the quality of this work: *

      *- The authors have analysed the expression of different myosin heavy chain isoforms, both regarding the slow and fast twitch fibers. Though, I think it would be interesting to investigate also the expression of Myh4, which is mainly expressed in type IIB fast twitch fibers; *

      Point 3.1) We agree with the reviewer’s comment. We will add the analysis for Myh 4 (western blots and qPCR) to our manuscript.

      Feasibility: will be accomplished

      The authors have observed a switch in the fiber type upon prolonged intermittent stimulation with blue LEDs, which translates into a higher number of type II fibers. It is known that exercise helps rescuing the loss of type II fibers, which is typical of age-related physiological processes, such as sarcopenia (Brunner F, Schmid A, Sheikhzadeh A, Nordin M, Yoon J, Frankel V. Effects of aging on Type II muscle fibers: a systematic review of the literature. J Aging Phys Act. 2007 Jul;15(3):336-48). However, I believe that providing a deeper analysis of the metabolism of the type II fibers (i.e. oxidative or glycolytic) could be helpful in order to have a clearer view on the specific subset of fibers that are generated with the given experimental conditions;

      Point 3.2) We agree with the reviewer's suggestion that an additional metabolic analysis would strengthen our observation. We propose to perform lactate measurements in cell lysate and supernatant to monitor a switch from oxidative to glycolytic metabolism. Specific inhibitors of the glycolytic pathway (2-DG, UK5099, Rotenone and AntimycinA) will be used as a control to prevent trained cells to shift towards a fast fiber type.

      Alternatively, we will assess the protein expression levels of key metabolic proteins involved in oxidative phosphorylation and in pyruvate and lactate production (e.g. OxPhos, …). All these techniques are routinely performed in an adjacent laboratory and we foresee no technical limitations.

      Feasibility: will be accomplished

      *Minor comments: *

      *The text and the figures are clear and well written, and help to explain better the experimental setup and procedures. Still, I would suggest some minor adjustments: *

      - I would suggest providing more information on the pH used for the experiments, since it plays a pivotal role in regulating myosin ATPase activity and, thus, muscular contractility. This would improve the replicability of your experiment.

      We thank the reviewer for this comment. We will provide information regarding the pH and add it in the method and materials section.

      Feasibility: will be accomplished

      The caption of Figure 1 is missing a description of panel E, even if it has been addressed in the text.

      Point 3.3.) We apologize for this mistake. We added the missing description of Fig. 1E.

      Feasibility: Accomplished

      *Reviewer #3 (Significance (Required)): *

      *This model opens new perspectives on in vitro muscle systems for the study of pathologies. The authors have been able to assess that myofibers contraction is able to induce a shift towards type II fibers, reproducing in vitro what is also known in vivo. For this reason, I believe that this model could be useful for further clinical approaches. It is important, though, to keep in mind that muscular disorders are not all characterized by a loss of type II fibers; for instance, myotonic dystrophies type I and type 2 exhibit similar phenotypes, even if different types of muscle fibers are affected. *

      *For this reason, it would be interesting to investigate the versatility of this model in terms of giving rise to different fiber types. *

      Point 3.4.) We added a sentence in the introduction that highlights an example of muscle disorders in which slow muscle fibers are predominately affected. Concerning the versatility of the model, we will add a paragraph to the discussion elaborating on how different stimulus frequency and durations could influence the specialization of fiber types.

      Feasibility: Accomplished

      Overall, we will address all major and minor comments from the reviewer. We have identified the experiments required for the metabolic analysis and agree that it will bolster our findings.

      Description of the revisions that have already been incorporated in the transferred manuscript

      Please insert a point-by-point reply describing the revisions that were already carried out and included in the transferred manuscript. If no revisions have been carried out yet, please leave this section empty.

      We have already carried out the following changes in the manuscript, which were proposed by the reviewers:

      Point 1.2: pattern of Myh3 and Myh8 in both panels appear very similar - We updated the representative images of Myh 3 and Myh8 in Figure 4 K-N __and included the loading controls Myh 8 and fMyh images in __Figure 4K-N __and to __supplementary Figure 4 A, B.

      Point 2.1: Figures 4F/G: representative images of Myh7 smFISH probe and the graph showing opposite trends – We have updated the representative images of Figure 4F and we have changed the x-axis of the graph in Figure 4E and G.

      __Point 2.5: __caution around bulk analysis we consider that based on the high percentage of contracting cells in response to blue light (~90%), this concern is not warranted.

      Point 3.3: caption of Figure 1 is missing a description of panel E – We have added the missing description to the manuscript (Figure 1E).

      Point 3.4: muscular disorders are not all characterized by a loss of type II fibers – we have added an example of a muscle disorder, in which slow fibers are predominantly affected, to the introduction (line 42-44) of the manuscript.

      investigate the versatility of this model in terms of giving rise to different fiber types – we added a paragraph to the discussion elaborating on how different stimulus frequency can lead to different fiber types (line 264-275).

      3. Description of analyses that authors prefer not to carry out

      Please include a point-by-point response explaining why some of the requested data or additional analyses might not be necessary or cannot be provided within the scope of a revision. This can be due to time or resource limitations or in case of disagreement about the necessity of such additional data given the scope of the study. Please leave empty if not applicable.

      Point 1.1: Reproducing our key findings with human cells – we ran pilot experiments on immortalized human cell lines and human iPSC-derived myotubes but were not able to mature these cells sufficiently nor infect them to allow long-term in vitro training. Increased maturation of myotubes derived from hiPSCs is an endeavor currently undertaken by many laboratories. Although we will attempt a few more trials, we believe the technical limitations are too important to address this point.

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      Referee #3

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary:

      In this work, the authors propose an in vitro model describing a strategy to alter fiber type composition of myotubes with a long-term, intermittent mechanical training. The authors present a model of myotubes transfected with an adenovirus, which makes them photosensitive; in this way, fibers contraction can be induced upon stimulation with blue LEDs. Even though ChR2 expressing myotubes have previously been used by other groups (Asano T, Ishizua T, Yawo H. Optically controlled contraction of photosensitive skeletal muscle cells. Biotechnol Bioeng. 2012 Jan;109(1):199-204), no one has ever used it in the way proposed by the authors. For this reason, this work opens new perspectives on the possible use for clinical and therapeutic purposes for this in vitro muscle system.

      Major comments:

      I believe that the authors have presented their results, conclusion and methods in a fair and clear way, so that the experiment could also be reproduced.

      However, I think there are some adjustments that could be done in order to improve and strengthen the quality of this work: - The authors have analysed the expression of different myosin heavy chain isoforms, both regarding the slow and fast twitch fibers. Though, I think it would be interesting to investigate also the expression of Myh4, which is mainly expressed in type IIB fast twitch fibers; - The authors have observed a switch in the fiber type upon prolonged intermittent stimulation with blue LEDs, which translates into a higher number of type II fibers. It is known that exercise helps rescuing the loss of type II fibers, which is typical of age-related physiological processes, such as sarcopenia (Brunner F, Schmid A, Sheikhzadeh A, Nordin M, Yoon J, Frankel V. Effects of aging on Type II muscle fibers: a systematic review of the literature. J Aging Phys Act. 2007 Jul;15(3):336-48). However, I believe that providing a deeper analysis of the metabolism of the type II fibers (i.e. oxidative or glycolytic) could be helpful in order to have a clearer view on the specific subset of fibers that are generated with the given experimental conditions;

      Minor comments:

      The text and the figures are clear and well written, and help to explain better the experimental setup and procedures. Still, I would suggest some minor adjustments:<br /> - I would suggest providing more information on the pH used for the experiments, since it plays a pivotal role in regulating myosin ATPase activity and, thus, muscular contractility. This would improve the replicability of your experiment; - The caption of Figure 1 is missing a description of panel E, even if it has been addressed in the text.

      Significance

      This model opens new perspectives on in vitro muscle systems for the study of pathologies. The authors have been able to assess that myofibers contraction is able to induce a shift towards type II fibers, reproducing in vitro what is also known in vivo. For this reason, I believe that this model could be useful for further clinical approaches. It is important, though, to keep in mind that muscular disorders are not all characterised by a loss of type II fibers; for instance, myotonic dystrophies type I and type 2 exhibit similar phenotypes, even if different types of muscle fibers are affected.

      For this reason, it would be interesting to investigate the versatility of this model in terms of giving rise to different fiber types.

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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      The work presented shows that muscle stem cells isolated from 5-day-old mice can be transduced with a DNA coding for a Channelrhodopsin2-Venus which will allow the muscle cell to be excited by a light beam (475nm) and to induce the contraction of myotubes. The authors measure the speed of contraction, relaxation and fatigability of such cells as a function of a more or less long excitation time. In particular, they show that myotubes in culture, excited at a frequency of 5 Hz, 8 hours per day for 7 days are larger than unstimulated myotubes and are more resistant to fatigue. Surprisingly, they show that myotubes stimulated at the low frequency of 5Hz express the neonatal Myosin heavy chain more than the slow Myh whose expression is known in adult muscle to be specifically strong in muscle fibers stimulated at low frequency. As the authors do not apply a high stimulation frequency (100Hz) to their culture, it is difficult to conclude whether the stimulation frequency applied in the study induces a specific phenotypic specialization of the myofiber, or a more general role. In this respect, the size of the myotubes obtained after training seems to be increased, showing a hypertrophic effect on the cultured myotubes. This study does not allow us to conclude, beyond the expression of the Myh8 gene, on the "gain" of the fast-twitch specialization of the myofiber by repeated stimulation over several days. A complementary study would certainly provide elements to better understand the role of muscle fiber stimulation, apart from the trophic contribution provided in vivo by the motoneuron.

      If the study is well conducted, some points are nevertheless important to address before publication.

      Significance

      • Figures 4F/G are difficult to understand: the Myh7 signal seems much higher in trained myonuclei (F), but the histogram shows the opposite (G).
      • Figures 4L, the western blot shows the same increase in Myh3 and Myh8 at day 4, while the graph shows an increase at d4 only in Myh8, why?
      • For immunocytochemistry against fMyh (Fig4 H, I) as well as for Western blots (Fig 4M, N), the authors have to provide arguments regarding the specificity of the antibodies used: some fMyh-specific antibodies recognize, Myh 3, 8, 1, 2, and 4, some only Myh 8, 1, 2, and 4, so it is quite difficult to conclude on the experiments using sc-32732 antibodies, (clone F59) which Myh are actually recognized in Western blot or immunocytochemistry.
      • While 10Hz stimulation is known in vivo to increase the slow program, and Myh7 expression in adult muscles, the authors show that ex vivo this is not the case with primary myotubes, with Myh7 protein level not being upregulated in the 7 day stimulation paradigm, while on the contrary Myh8 expression is upregulated. I think it would be important to quantify the mRNA of each of the Myh genes to be sure that there is no problem with the antibodies, which could recognize several Myh proteins, in the absence of a resolving acrylamide gel allowing visualization and relative level of each isoform according to its migration. Nevertheless, this is an interesting observation that could be related to the early phases of muscle contraction in vivo. Indeed, it has been shown in rats that early postnatal development animals are essentially sedentary and whose muscles (Sol and EDL) are stimulated by short intermittent bursts similar to 10Hz (doi: 10.1111/j.0953-816X.2004.03418.x) during the first 2-3 weeks of life. This should be compatible with Myh8 expression. It would be relevant in this idea to verify that the paradigm presented leads to myotubes with a "neonatal" phenotype. Quantification of the expression level of genes specifically expressed during the neonatal period, compared with those expressed in adult slow or fast myofibers, would enhance the conclusions drawn by the authors.
      • Should we also be cautious about bulk analysis since, as shown in Figure S1, not all myotubes express ChR2?
      • May the authors correlate the ex vivo neonatal phenotype observed with the neonatal muscles they used to prepare myogenic stem cells?
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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      The manuscript by Henning et al describes a method to induce myofiber subtype specification in vitro based on optogenetics and particle image velocimetry. The work is well performed and the manuscript is clear. The findings might be useful to the muscle community, but there are some issues which should be addressed in order to improve the quality and impact of the manuscript.

      My main concern is that the whole work is performed in murine cells. Although I appreciate that the authors have used primary myoblasts rather than cell lines, I also think that the key advantage of such in vitro platforms is the possibility to "humanise" the experiments as much as possible. In this context, the key findings of this work should be reproduced using human myoblasts. This will significantly enhance the relevance of the work.

      Other issues:

      1. From a methodological perspective, I think some clarifications are needed on the western blots shown in Fig 4K-L, as the pattern of Myh3 and Myh8 in both panels appear very similar. This could easily be ruled out by providing raw data/images. Please accept my apologies if this is simply caused by similar migration patterns in the gels (worth checking).
      2. Figure 3K-L (BTX): better imaging should be performed to assess morphology of NMJ (eg. pretzel-shaped as in mature/adult NMJ?)
      3. Figure 3 N-P: Why did the authors used a relatively complex techniques such as snFISH to answer a question more simply addressable with more conventional (and perhaps less operator dependent) techniques such quantitative PCR?

      Significance

      Nature and significance: as mentioned in the previous section, the work can be very significant if expanded to human myoblasts/myotubes, which can have different slow/fast myosin expression pattern. The work is clearly methodological/descriptive, so showing an application of this technique using diseased/mutant cells may increase its relevance even more (but I do not believe it is a key barrier to publication).

      Comparison with other methods: Similar methods have been published but not with this level of resolution.

      Expertise: muscle disease and regeneration, in vitro and in vivo models.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      2. Point-by-point description of the revision

      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      *The paper titled "Deregulations of miR-1 and its target Multiplexin promote dilated cardiomyopathy associated with myotonic dystrophy type 1" by the Jagla group studied the effect of down-regulation of miR-1 in myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1) using fly as the disease model. The study is based on previous findings that in DM1 MBNL1 is sequestered, CELF1 is stabilized, and miR-1 is down regulated. The authors further identified Multiplexin to be the target effector of miR-1 in the fly heart and studied its function with a series of gain- and loss-of-function and rescue experiments. The authors' findings represent a significant advance in understanding the genetic mechanisms that can explain the pathogenic causes of dilated cardiomyopathy associated with DM1. Overall, this paper is well written and organized, with well-designed experiments and a clear model. A few additional experiments are suggested to further strengthen the conclusion. *

      Answer: We are grateful to the Reviewer for appreciating quality and significance of our work.

      1. Wild-type and Hand-Gal4 controls are missing for all experiments (only UAS lines outcrossed to w1118 are displayed). Also, Hand-Gal4 driver lines can cause mild dilation by itself, which would influence interpretation and statistics of data. * Answer: We agree and include the Hand-Gal4/+ control condition to all main and supplemental figures showing heart parameters. The differences in data statistics using Hand-Gal4/+ compared to UAS/+ control lines reinforce our data interpretation.

      They are listed below:

      • increase in diastolic diameter and reduction of fractional shortening become statistically significant in Hand>miR-1sponge hearts at 5 weeks (Fig. 1D, F);
      • reductions of fractional shortening become significant in Hand>Bru3 (Fig. 2C) and Hand>mblRNAi (Fig. 2F) contexts at 1 week;
      • increase in diastolic diameter of Hand>mblRNAi hearts at 5 weaks becomes statistically significant (Fig. 2D);
      • increase in diastolic diameter of Hand>Mp hearts at 5 weeks (Fig. 4E) becomes statistically significant ;
      • reduction of fractional shortening becomes statistically significant in Hand>Mp context at 1 week (Fig. 4G);
      • increase in diastolic diameter in Hand>960CTG context at 5 weeks becomes statistically significant (Fig. S2A). *Also, the authors should consider to confirm the miR-1 phenotype obtained with the sponge with a miR mutant, and also combine miR-1 het with miR sponge (worsening of phenotype?). Alternatively, knockdown efficiency of miR should be tested by qPCR or HCR/smFISH. *

      Answer: We are grateful for these comments. Below we refer to published data and to performed additional experiments that are in support of miR-1 sponge phenotypes:

      • UAS-miR-1 sponge line we used was generated and tested by Fulga et al., (Nat Comm, 2015). Fulga and colleagues apply UAS-miR1sponge line to attenuate miR-1 function in muscles and obtain miR-KO-like muscle phenotypes.
      • Here, we identify Mp as a new direct miR-1 target. To test whether miR-1 sponge attenuates miR-1 function we analyzed Mp protein levels in the hearts from wt and Hand>miR-1sponge flies. Mp expression is highly increased in Hand>miR-1sponge context indicating attenuation of miR-1 by the sponge transgene. These data are presented in new Fig. S5J;
      • We tested whether heterozygous dmiR-1 KO -/+ flies (homozygous dmiR-1 mutants are lethal) develop Hand>miR-1sponge-like heart phenotype. Indeed, at 5 weeks of age dmiR-1 KO -/+ flies show significantly increased diastolic and systolic heart diameters. Thus, in old flies loss of one copy of miR-1 mimics heart dilation observed in Hand>dmiR-1sponge context. Heart contractility remains unaffected in dmiR-1 KO -/+ flies, suggesting that loss of one copy of miR-1 has a weaker impact on heart function than heart-targeted miR-1sponge. These data are shown in a new supplemental figure (Fig. S4A-C).

      • It is surprising that one of the DM1 fly models, overexpression of 960 CTG repeats, did not show DCM, considering it is the primary cause of DM1 in humans due to excessive CTG repeats. It should be discussed why Hand>960 CTG does not lead to DCM, since the authors claim that this model with high number of CTG repeats shows a strong phenotype. Are Hand>bru3 and Hand>mbl stronger? *

      Answer: We thank Reviewer for pointing this out.

      Heart and muscle-specific DM1 models we established and tested (Hand> or Mef>960CTG, Hand> or Mef>mblRNAi and Hand> or Mef>Bru3) all develop the majority of DM1 phenotypes (Picchio et al., 2013 ; Picchio et al., 2018 ; Auxerre-Planté et al., 2019). However, some cardiac DM1 phenotypes such as conduction defects (Auxerre-Plantié et al., 2019) and described here DCM are only observed in Hand>Bru3 and Hand>mblRNAi contexts. We previously observed that the down-regulation of sarcomeric genes is more important in Mef>Bru3 than in Mef>960CTG context (Picchio et al., 2018). This could result from a milder effect of 960CTG repeats on Bru3 and Mbl levels when compared with Gal4-driven overexpression of Bru3 and RNAi-knockdown of mbl. We add a comment to Results section (page 5) to discuss this point: “The Hand>960CTG line shows cardiac dilation at 5 weeks of age characterized by significant increase in diastolic and systolic diameters but with normal cardiac contractility (Fig. S2A,B,C). We hypothesise that non-affected contractility in this DM1 line is due to a milder effect of 960CTG repeats on Bru3 and Mbl levels compared to GAL4-driven overexpression of Bru3 and RNAi-knockdown of mbl.”

      *Is miR-1 (and Mp) unaltered in these flies with 960 CTG repeats? *

      Answer: In Hand>960CTG context a reduced level of miR-1 and an increase in Mp are also observed (not shown). Hand>960CTG flies do not develop DCM but at 5 weeks of age show a significant increase in diastolic and systolic heart diameters. One possibility we favor is that deregulation of miR-1 and Mp in Hand>960CTG is under the level that induces DCM. By analogy, only DM1 patients with a high increase in Col15A1 develop DCM (Fig. 5).

      It would be interesting to overexpress 960 CTG in a miR-1 or mbl heterozygous mutant background, which may produce DCM.

      Answer: To test additional genetic context in which miR-1 is reduced we used miR-1 heterozygous KO flies. We found that in 5 weeks-old flies loss of one copy of miR-1 leads, like in Hand>miR-1sponge flies, to heart dilation (Fig. S4A-C), however mir-1KO +/- flies do not show affected contractility.

      We agree that combining Hand>960CTG with mir-1 heterozygous mutants would potentially result in an additional DCM producing context. As we are focusing on our DCM developing DM1 models (Hand>Bru3 and Hand>mblRNAi) and on conserved deregulation of miR-1 and its target Mp/Col15A1, we didn’t follow this suggestion.

      • In Figure 2H, the mean intensity is displayed as the readout of the smFISH quantification of miR-1 levels. If understood correctly, this is the wrong readout since smFISH detects single molecule fluorescence of transcripts, so the number of transcripts should be quantified. *

      Answer: The miR-1 quantification was done using FISH with miR-1-specific LNA probe (Qiagen miRCURY system). This is highly sensitive ISH but the resolution is not at a single molecule level. The Imaris-generated spots in Fig. 2G and 2G’ represent (for each of them) several miR-1 molecules. The mean intensity of the fluorescent signal for a given spot is proportional to the number of miR-1 molecules and the average of the mean intensities of all spots illustrates the level of miR-1 expression (Fig. 2H). We remove “sm” abbreviations from the text and Figure legend and provide a more detailed description of miR-1 quantification in the Method section.

      Furthermore, Hand-Gal4 is not expressed in the ventral longitudinal muscles (VLM). As a proof of principle, miR-1 levels should be quantified in VLM (no change in transcripts levels expected).

      Answer: When cross with UAS-GFP the Hand-Gal4 expression could be detected in VLMs even if VLM associated GFP signal is much lower than in cardioblasts (CB) and pericardial cells (PC). Representative views of Hand>GFP hearts labeled with anti-GFP are shown below.

      • Fig. 5: Since DCM- DM1 patients still show elevated COL15A1 levels but no DCM, it would be interesting to know if DCM phenotypes are COL15A1-dosage dependent. This could be easily tested in the fly model by testing UAS-Mp overexpression at different temperatures. *

      Answer: Heart parameters are to some extent temperature-sensitive (our observations) thus in our view increasing targeted Mp expression by elevating temperature is not appropriate for heart physiology experiments.

      Presented in the manuscript data on Mp overexpression at 25°C already provide some indication for Mp dose-dependent effect in the fly model. We observe that DCM is induced at both 1 and 5 weeks of age, but the cardiac tube dilation is less important in 1 than in 5 weeks-old flies (Fig. 4). Also, when analysing Hand>960CTG DM1 model we observed that young flies with a low Mp levels do not show cardiac dilation while aged Hand>960CTG flies display an increase in diastolic and systolic heart diameters concomitant with a higher Mp.

      • The authors elegantly show rescue of Hand>Bru3 flies by Mp RNAi. Their model would be further strengthened if a similar rescue can be shown with Hand>mblRNAi. *

      Answer: So far we were unsuccessful in generation of recombined mblRNAi ;MpRNAi line most probably because of incompatibility in chromosomal transgene locations. Thus, we were unable to perform this experiment.

      Because gene deregulations and DCM phenotypes we describe are highly similar in Hand>Bru3 and Hand>mblRNAi context we believe that rescue experiment we provide is representative for both DM1-associated DCM contexts.

      Minor points:

      *Fig. 1A,B: Ventral longitudinal muscles are covering the hearts on these images, so it's difficult to see the heart dimensions. This holds true for images throughout the manuscript. Where were the diameters measured (by the valves)? A better description and illustration would help the reader understand the situation. *

      Answer: In the lateral heart views as in Fig. 1A and B it is indeed difficult to appreciate heart dimensions. For this reason we always show transversal sections derived from 3D reconstruction (as in Fig. 1A’ and B’). In this context differences in the internal heart diameters could be appreciated (white lines). All diastolic and systolic heart diameter measures presented in the graphs are extracted from the SOHA registrations (see Methods).

      *Fig. 1 A',B': White line does not reflect the location where SOHA data are measured and should be horizontal for consistency. Where is ventral vs. dorsal? *

      Answer: We agree. We indicate where is ventral and dorsa. For consistency we remove white lines from panels 1A and 1B and maintain orientations of white lines in panels 1A’ and 1B’.

      Fig. 1D-F: Annotate 1 and 5 weeks in Figure, please. Also, why were 1 and 5 weeks tested? Is there an age-component in DM1 phenotype severity?

      Answer: We add 1 and 5 weeks indications to the figures and discuss in the text (Results section page 4) that 1 and 5 weeks analyses were applied because the severity of cardiac phenotypes increases with age.

      *Fig. 3A: Transcriptional analysis was done at which stage of development? *

      Answer: It was done at 5 weeks of age. We add information to the figure legend.

      *Fig. 3: It is not clear, in which set the authors looked for miR-1 bindings sites (144 genes or the whole set)? Not well annotated. What is meant by 'heart-targeted'? *

      Answer: In silico search was performed on the whole set of genes. We provide more precisions on in silico screen in Method section.

      *Fig. 4C,D: It looks like they are not shown in the same dorsal-ventral orientation. Also, it looks Mp is overexpressed in the VLM, but Hand-Gal4 only drives in the cardiomyocytes and pericardial cells? How was quantification done? *

      Answer: We are thanking for pointing this out. We revised heart orientations in panel 4C and 4D. As previously mentioned Hand-Gal4 is also expressed in the VLM. We present a more representative view in 4D with a lower Mp signal in VLMs. Quantification of Mp expression is not presented here but performed like in Fig. 3G.

      *Fig. 4I: Why are some myofibers indicated in red in the model? *

      Answer: In red are indicated additional actin filaments that form in the case of heart dilation. As we do not discuss this aspect we modify drawing in the model.

      Fig. 5 D-E: Genotypes need to be better indicated in the graphs.

      Answer: We provide now more complete genotypes.

      *Did the authors control for multiple UAS sites? Is UPRT a UAS control? *

      Answer: Yes, UPRT is the UAS line.

      *In the first paragraph of Result 3, the last sentence seems unfinished. "We identified a set of candidate genes, of which Multiplexin (Mp)" *

      Answer: We revise this sentence.

      *In Method, the in silico screening for miR-1 target should be explained in more detail. *

      Answer: We provide a more detailed in silico screening protocol in Method section.

      *Reviewer #1 (Significance (Required)): *

      * The presented data is a significant advance our knowledge of our understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved in DM1. I expect that scientists in the muscular disease field and beyond will find this work of high interest. *

      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      *Summary: This well-written manuscript utilizes the Drosophila model system to demonstrate that reduction of micro-RNA miR-1 and the resulting increase in one of its down-regulated proteins (Multiplexin) contribute to a dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) phenotype. This is of interest in that this particular micro-RNA is downregulated in myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1), and this correlates with the DCM phenotype observed in patients. Further, the authors show that the human ortholog of Multiplexin is enriched in human DM1-DCM hearts and that downregulation of this protein in Drosophila DM1 models improves the DCM phenotype. Hence, the work demonstrates a potential mechanism for disease development and its amelioration. *

      Answer: We are grateful to the Reviewer for appreciating our work and pointing out potential impact of our findings.

      Major comments:

      1. As pericardial cells are probed and mentioned substantially in this paper, the authors should explain what these cells do in flies. While affiliated with the heart, they are not myocytes and are probably not particularly relevant to the human heart. In this regard, it is possible that the phenotypes observed in the heart are partially or completely the result of Hand-driven expression of transgenes in the pericardial cells. Although unlikely, this issue should be mentioned as well. * Answer: Hand-Gal4 driver is the most commonly used Drosophila cardiac driver. Regarding influence of Hand-Gal4 driven expression in pericardial cells on the heart phenotypes, we previously tested all our DM1 models using cardioblast-specific Tin-GAL4 driver. All cardiac phenotypes including DCM are also observed when using Tin-Gal4 driver (as shown for conduction defects in Fig.5B Auxerre-Plantié et al., Elife 2019) indicating that the phenotypes are mainly due to gene deregulations within the cardioblasts.

      *Does human miR-1 target Col15A1 transcripts based upon in silico analysis? This issue should be mentioned and discussed. *

      Answer: In silico analysis (new supplemental Fig.S4G) reveals that Col15A1 transcripts carry a perfect miR-1 seed site in 3’UTR region.

      Minor comments:

      1. The abstract should explicitly state that Multiplexin is a form of collagen.* Answer: We mention this in the abstract.

      *More information on the identity between the Drosophila and human forms of miR-1 would be helpful to establish that they are conserved. What is the percent identity and are the sequences that target mRNAs homologous? *

      Answer: Mature Drosophila and human miR-1 are highly homologous. We provide their sequences in new supplemental Fig. S4F.

      • In Figure 1C, it appears that there is an increased heartbeat frequency and arrhythmicity. Are these mutant phenotypes as well? *

      Answer: We check it again and do not observe any significant change in heart period or in arrhythmia index in Hand>miR1 sponge context in both young and old flies. We show a new more representative view of M-modes in panel 1C.

      • Incomplete sentence (page 5): We identified a set of candidate genes, of which Multiplexin (Mp) *

      Answer: This sentence was revised.

      *What is the basis for studying Multiplexin function as opposed to other candidates that were identified? It would be useful to mention this in the Results, although it is mentioned in the Discussion ("We top-ranked Mp because of its known role in setting the size of the cardiac lumen"). *

      Answer: We add following sentences to Results section to clarify this point earlier in the manuscript.

      “Mp overexpression in the developing embryonic heart leads to an enlargement of heart lumen and is sufficient to promote an increase of the embryonic aorta diameter to that of the heart proper (Harpaz et al., 2013). We thus reasoned that Mp could be involved in DM1-associated DCM.”

      • "Mp was detected on the luminal and external surfaces of the cardiomyocytes ensuring cardiac contractions" Why does this ensure cardiac contractions? *

      Answer: We are grateful for pointing this out. Mp is not ensuring but could influence cardiac contractions. We revise this sentence by deleting its second part “ensuring cardiac contractions”.

      • Need to state in the text that the increased level of Col15A1 transcript expression in DM1 patients was not statistically significant. *

      Answer: We state this in the text.

      • Need a magnification bar for Figures 5F-H. *

      Answer: Scale bar is added.

      *Please speculate as to why the third DM1 model does not recapitulate the cardiac phenotypes. *

      Answer: Heart and muscle-specific DM1 models we established and tested (Hand> or Mef>960CTG, Hand> or Mef>mblRNAi and Hand> or Mef>Bru3) all develop the majority of DM1 phenotypes (Picchio et al., 2013 ; Picchio et al., 2018 ; Auxerre-Planté et al., 2019). However, some cardiac DM1 phenotypes such as conduction defects (Auxerre-Plantié et al., 2019) and described here DCM are only observed in Hand>Bru3 and Hand>mblRNAi contexts. We previously observed that downregulation of sarcomeric genes is higher in Mef>Bru3 than in Mef>960CTG contexts (Picchio et al., 2018). This could result from a milder effect of 960CTG repeats on Bru3 and Mbl levels when compared with Gal4-driven overexpression of Bru3 and RNAi-knockdown of mbl. We add a comment in Results section (page 5) to discuss this point: “The Hand>960CTG line shows cardiac dilation at 5 weeks of age characterized by significant increase in diastolic and systolic diameters but with normal cardiac contractility (Fig. S2A,B,C). We hypothesise that non-affected contractility in this DM1 line is due to a milder effect of 960CTG repeats on Bru3 and Mbl levels compared to GAL4-driven overexpression of Bru3 and RNAi-knockdown of mbl.”

      • Did the confocal studies indicate whether there was myofibrillar disarray in the heart tubes? *

      Answer: Thank you for this comment. Yes, we observe myofibrillar disarray. We show disarray phenotypes in all DCM developing contexts in a new supplementary figure (Fig.S1).

      • For the statistical comparisons in the figures, please indicate in the legends that statistically significant differences (p

      Answer: We provide this precision in Figure legends.

      *Please more thoroughly explain the UPRT control line. *

      Answer: We provide information about UPRT line in the Results section (p.8).

      *Figure S1 legend: "(red) and 5 (darck)"; the latter should read "(black)" *

      Answer: Revised.

      *Figure S2 panels J and K: it would be helpful to indicate what is being measured on the Y axis, e.g., Mean intensity of dmiR-1 levels. This is true for the various panels in other figures labeled CTCF on their Y axes. *

      Answer: Revised as suggested by the Reviewer.

      *CROSS-CONSULTATION COMMENTS All reviewers agree that this is a well-designed study and that the manuscript is well written. The missing Hand-Gal4 control mentioned by Reviewers 1 and 3 seems an important element that is missing. These reviewers also call into question the FISH quantification methodology. These two issues seem the most critical to resolve. The other additional experiments suggested deserve input from the authors as to whether they already have relevant data that can be cited, whether they are important to pursue or if they go beyond the scope of the current study. Reviewers 1 and 2 agree that further discussion of the fly model that does not show DCM should be provided. The question on fibrosis in the fly models is germane (Reviewer 3), although it might be indirectly addressed by the fact that a collagen molecule is upregulated here (a major player in fibrosis). All of the minor comments are reasonable and should be addressed by the authors. *

      Answer: We provide answer to all these comments.

      *Reviewer #2 (Significance (Required)): *

      * This paper is significant in that it draws a more direct connection between the reduction in a microRNA that occurs in myotonic dystrophy and dilated cardiomyopathy that is affiliated with this disease. It shows that a form of collagen that is overexpressed in both Drosophila models and humans with DM1-caused DCM is causative/correlated with the increased heart diameters. Thus, the fly model provides important insights into the link between the mutant gene and the cardiac phenotype. This work will be of interest to those studying skeletal and cardiac muscle disease and scientists interested in developing potential therapeutics for treating DM1-caused DCM. Note that my expertise is in producing and studying skeletal muscle and cardiac disease models in the Drosophila system, which is relevant to evaluating this paper and defining its significance in the field. *

      Reviewer #3 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      *A current study demonstrates that miR-1 targets the newly identified heat-specific target Multiplexin, which, when upregulated, exhibits similar phenotypes observed for the Drosophila DM1 model. Furthermore, the authors additionally confirm some of their results using samples derived from DM1 patients and support the data obtained in flies. Overall, it is a good study with well-performed experiments. The data presented in the paper are convincing and most of the claims the authors provide are supported by their findings. Manuscript is clearly written and easy to read and understand. Statistical analysis and the description of the methods are appropriate. It is an interesting paper and I would highly support it to be accepted for publication; however, I few comments I would like authors to address. *

      Answer: We are grateful to the Reviewer for his enthusiastic and supportive comments on our work.

      Major comments:

      1. The cardiac dilation/fractional shortening phenotype in Hand>dmiR-1-KD flies is only observed in young flies but not in old flies. However, heart-targeted Mp overexpression leads to DCM in aged flies. Could authors comment on this? * Answer: We speculate that attenuation of miR-1 in the heart could lead to more drastic pro-DCM alterations thus leading to earlier phenotypes than in the case of Mp overexpression.

      To better assess DCM phenotypes we included additional Hand-Gal4/+ control context and more heart samples from 5 weeks-old flies. These additional analyses presented in revised Fig. 1D-F reveal that old Hand>dmiR-1KD flies, like the young one, also develop DCM phenotype.

      • Since the HAND-Gal4 line was used to drive multiple transgenes, it would be important to have the cardiac dilation/fractional shortening phenotype measured in this line as a control. *

      Answer: We performed these control experiments and suggested by the reviewer they are now included to the graphs.

      • The use of a sponge line is highly appreciated as it allows for tissue-specific downregulation of miRNA. However, to corroborate the data, I would recommend including the knockdown mutant that is available in Bloomington as additional confirmation since no qPCR is provided for the efficacy of the sponge line. This line could also be used in combination with reporter lines to perform a targeting experiment. *

      Answer: We are grateful for these comments. Below we refer to performed additional experiments:

      • We tested whether heterozygous dmiR-1 KO -/+ flies (homozygous dmiR-1 mutants are lethal) develop Hand>miR-1sponge-like heart phenotype. Indeed, at 5 weeks of age dmiR-1 KO -/+ flies show significantly increased diastolic and systolic heart diameters. Thus, in old flies loss of one copy of miR-1 mimics heart dilation observed in Hand>dmiR-1sponge context. Heart contractility remains unaffected in dmiR-1 KO -/+ flies, suggesting that loss of one copy of miR-1 has a weaker impact on heart function than heart-targeted miR-1sponge. These data are shown in a new supplemental figure (Fig. S4A-C).
      • Here, we identify Mp as a new direct miR-1 target. To test whether miR-1 sponge attenuates miR-1 function we analyzed Mp protein levels in the hearts from wt and Hand>miR-1sponge flies. Mp expression is highly increased in Hand>miR-1sponge context indicating attenuation of miR-1 by the sponge transgene. These data are presented in new Fig. S5J;

      • The authors state that the reduced miR-1 levels have already been shown in DM1 patients. It would be a stronger argument if similar downregulation was shown in patient samples used in this manuscript (qPCR would be sufficient). *

      Answer: We performed suggested by the reviewer analyses of miR-1 in patient samples. We show that miR-1 is indeed down regulated. These new data supporting conserved pro-DCM deregulation of miR-1 and its target Mp/Col15A1 are shown in new Fig 5C.

      • Because fibrosis is a hallmark of myotonic dystrophy, do the authors have some makers or other methods to test whether observed phenotypes are due to fibrosis? *

      Answer: Fibrosis (replacement of muscle by fibrotic tissue) has not been reported in Drosophila and is not associated with degeneration of body wall or cardiac Drosophila muscles in so far described fly models of human muscular dystrophies. However, one could speculate that increase in Mp/Col15A1 levels within the ECM of diseased DM1 cardiac cells we observe, could have, a fibrotic-like, negative effect on cardiac function.

      • The explanation of the observation that pre-miR-1 levels are down-regulated only in young flies, whereas old flies show an opposite tendency, is missing. *

      Answer: Accumulation of pre-miR-1 in old flies is most probably due to the affected processing mediated by mbl. This is correlated with the reduction of the mature miR-1.

      The authors suggested that this is due to "impaired processing". To corroborate this interesting hypothesis, the authors performed only the smFISH intensity analyses, which are somewhat difficult to decipher. I would recommend, in addition to the pre-miRNA levels, to test and compare the mature miRNA expression using TaqMan qPCR.

      Answer: Impaired miR-1 processing is supported by the previous studies in human cells (Rau et al., 2011) and in Drosophila models (Fernandez-Costa et al., 2013). We believe that our method of quantification of miR-1 expression via highly sensitive miRCURY LNA FISH is a well-adapted method. It was performed with all necessary controls. In the method section we provide now more details for the LNA FISH based miR-1 quantification approach.

      In parallel, TaqManPCR-based miR-1 quantification was performed for human cardiac samples from DM1 patients.

      • The relationship between Bru3 and miR-1 shown in the schematic is not well-defined and would rather require a question mark or dotted line, as the authors provide no evidence that Bru3 can be directly involved in miR-1 processing. The authors suggest that CELF1 may bind UG-rich miRNAs and mediate their degradation by recruiting poly(A)-specific ribonuclease (PARN), but this is only a hypothesis and does not justify the placement of a direct line of repression on the schematic in the last figure. *

      Answer: We agree and modify scheme accordingly.

      • I also feel that the authors did not clearly explain the cardiac phenotypes in terms of systolic and diastolic diameter measurements. Which parameters clearly represent the DM1 model, specifically higher or lower diameters of systole and diastole? Results should be clearly indicated in figure legends. *

      Answer: We provide appropriate precisions in figure legends.

      Minor comments:

      1. The full name of CELF1 on page 2: CUGBP Elav-like family member 1 should be added*. Answer: Revised

      2. For better readability of the text and corresponding figures, consistent use of UAS-Mp or UAS-3HNC1 is recommended, but not a mixture of both. *

      Answer: We consistently use UAS-Mp in the revised version

      • Why is the Multiplexin overexpression line called UAS-3HNC1? *

      Answer: This is the name that resumes protein Mp domains: Collagen tripple helix and trimerization region (3H) and NC1 domain (C-terminal non-triple helical domain) comprising Endostatin domain. We provide this information in Methods section.

      • For all figures, it would be better if the genotypes were indicated in the panels and the graphs had the age of the flies instead of color coding. *

      Answer: We revised these points as suggested.

      • Figure 5. Were technical replicates performed for the western blot shown in 5B? *

      Answer: We didn’t perform technical replicates because of limited human sample amounts

      • Figure S1-S2. Why the data for qPCR of miR-1 is in figure S1 and not S2? *

      Answer: In the revised version all supplemental analyses on miR1 are included to the new Fig. S4

      • Figure S4. Misspelling in figure legend: Scale "barre" instead of scale "bar".*

      Answer:Revised

      Reviewer #3 (Significance (Required)):

      * The manuscript "Deregulations of miR-1 and its target Multiplexin promote dilated cardiomyopathy associated with myotonic dystrophy type 1" by Souidi et al., reports a novel role of identified Multiplexin (Mp) as a new cardiac miR-1 target involved in myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1) using Drosophila as a model system. Myotonic dystrophy type 1 (MD1) is a severe disease that results in a multisystem disorder affecting the skeletal and smooth muscles as well as the eye, heart, endocrine system, and central nervous system. At the moment, no appropriate treatment has been identified to prevent it. Previous studies have also shown that heart-specific miR-1 levels are reduced in patients with DM1, but the role and targets of this miRNA in the heart have not been analyzed. Research presented in this paper is of a broad interest and provide new evidence that will help to better understating DM1 on molecular level. It will be interesting not only to scientists from the Drosophila field but will also contribute to medical research field.*

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      Referee #3

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      A current study demonstrates that miR-1 targets the newly identified heat-specific target Multiplexin, which, when upregulated, exhibits similar phenotypes observed for the Drosophila DM1 model. Furthermore, the authors additionally confirm some of their results using samples derived from DM1 patients and support the data obtained in flies. Overall, it is a good study with well-performed experiments. The data presented in the paper are convincing and most of the claims the authors provide are supported by their findings. Manuscript is clearly written and easy to read and understand. Statistical analysis and the description of the methods are appropriate. It is an interesting paper and I would highly support it to be accepted for publication; however, I few comments I would like authors to address.

      Major comments:

      1. The cardiac dilation/fractional shortening phenotype in Hand>dmiR-1-KD flies is only observed in young flies but not in old flies. However, heart-targeted Mp overexpression leads to DCM in aged flies. Could authors comment on this?

      2. Since the HAND-Gal4 line was used to drive multiple transgenes, it would be important to have the cardiac dilation/fractional shortening phenotype measured in this line as a control.

      3. The use of a sponge line is highly appreciated as it allows for tissue-specific downregulation of miRNA. However, to corroborate the data, I would recommend including the knockdown mutant that is available in Bloomington as additional confirmation since no qPCR is provided for the efficacy of the sponge line. This line could also be used in combination with reporter lines to perform a targeting experiment.

      4. The authors state that the reduced miR-1 levels have already been shown in DM1 patients. It would be a stronger argument if similar downregulation was shown in patient samples used in this manuscript (qPCR would be sufficient).

      5. Because fibrosis is a hallmark of myotonic dystrophy, do the authors have some makers or other methods to test whether observed phenotypes are due to fibrosis?

      6. The explanation of the observation that pre-miR-1 levels are down-regulated only in young flies, whereas old flies show an opposite tendency, is missing. The authors suggested that this is due to "impaired processing". To corroborate this interesting hypothesis, the authors performed only the smFISH intensity analyses, which are somewhat difficult to decipher. I would recommend, in addition to the pre-miRNA levels, to test and compare the mature miRNA expression using TaqMan qPCR.

      7. The relationship between Bru3 and miR-1 shown in the schematic is not well-defined and would rather require a question mark or dotted line, as the authors provide no evidence that Bru3 can be directly involved in miR-1 processing. The authors suggest that CELF1 may bind UG-rich miRNAs and mediate their degradation by recruiting poly(A)-specific ribonuclease (PARN), but this is only a hypothesis and does not justify the placement of a direct line of repression on the schematic in the last figure.

      8. I also feel that the authors did not clearly explain the cardiac phenotypes in terms of systolic and diastolic diameter measurements. Which parameters clearly represent the DM1 model, specifically higher or lower diameters of systole and diastole? Results should be clearly indicated in figure legends.

      Minor comments:

      1. The full name of CELF1 on page 2: CUGBP Elav-like family member 1 should be added.

      2. For better readability of the text and corresponding figures, consistent use of UAS-Mp or UAS-3HNC1 is recommended, but not a mixture of both.

      3. Why is the Multiplexin overexpression line called UAS-3HNC1?

      4. For all figures, it would be better if the genotypes were indicated in the panels and the graphs had the age of the flies instead of color coding.

      5. Figure 5. Were technical replicates performed for the western blot shown in 5B?

      6. Figure S1-S2. Why the data for qPCR of miR-1 is in figure S1 and not S2?

      7. Figure S4. Misspelling in figure legend: Scale "barre" instead of scale "bar".

      Significance

      The manuscript "Deregulations of miR-1 and its target Multiplexin promote dilated cardiomyopathy associated with myotonic dystrophy type 1" by Souidi et al., reports a novel role of identified Multiplexin (Mp) as a new cardiac miR-1 target involved in myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1) using Drosophila as a model system. Myotonic dystrophy type 1 (MD1) is a severe disease that results in a multisystem disorder affecting the skeletal and smooth muscles as well as the eye, heart, endocrine system, and central nervous system. At the moment, no appropriate treatment has been identified to prevent it. Previous studies have also shown that heart-specific miR-1 levels are reduced in patients with DM1, but the role and targets of this miRNA in the heart have not been analyzed. Research presented in this paper is of a broad interest and provide new evidence that will help to better understating DM1 on molecular level. It will be interesting not only to scientists from the Drosophila field but will also contribute to medical research field.

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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary:

      This well-written manuscript utilizes the Drosophila model system to demonstrate that reduction of micro-RNA miR-1 and the resulting increase in one of its down-regulated proteins (Multiplexin) contribute to a dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) phenotype. This is of interest in that this particular micro-RNA is downregulated in myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1), and this correlates with the DCM phenotype observed in patients. Further, the authors show that the human ortholog of Multiplexin is enriched in human DM1-DCM hearts and that downregulation of this protein in Drosophila DM1 models improves the DCM phenotype. Hence, the work demonstrates a potential mechanism for disease development and its amelioration.

      Major comments:

      1. As pericardial cells are probed and mentioned substantially in this paper, the authors should explain what these cells do in flies. While affiliated with the heart, they are not myocytes and are probably not particularly relevant to the human heart. In this regard, it is possible that the phenotypes observed in the heart are partially or completely the result of Hand-driven expression of transgenes in the pericardial cells. Although unlikely, this issue should be mentioned as well.

      2. Does human miR-1 target Col15A1 transcripts based upon in silico analysis? This issue should be mentioned and discussed.

      Minor comments:

      1. The abstract should explicitly state that Multiplexin is a form of collagen.

      2. More information on the identity between the Drosophila and human forms of miR-1 would be helpful to establish that they are conserved. What is the percent identity and are the sequences that target mRNAs homologous?

      3. In Figure 1C, it appears that there is an increased heartbeat frequency and arrhythmicity. Are these mutant phenotypes as well?

      4. Incomplete sentence (page 5): We identified a set of candidate genes, of which Multiplexin (Mp)

      5. What is the basis for studying Multiplexin function as opposed to other candidates that were identified? It would be useful to mention this in the Results, although it is mentioned in the Discussion ("We top-ranked Mp because of its known role in setting the size of the cardiac lumen").

      6. "Mp was detected on the luminal and external surfaces of the cardiomyocytes ensuring cardiac contractions" Why does this ensure cardiac contractions?

      7. Need to state in the text that the increased levels of Col15A1 transcript expression in DM1 patients was not statistically significant.

      8. Need a magnification bar for Figures 5F-H.

      9. Please speculate as to why the third DM1 model does not recapitulate the cardiac phenotypes.

      10. Did the confocal studies indicate whether there was myofibrillar disarray in the heart tubes?

      11. For the statistical comparisons in the figures, please indicate in the legends that statistically significant differences (p<0.05) are shown.

      12. Please more thoroughly explain the UPRT control line.

      13. Figure S1 legend: "(red) and 5 (darck)"; the latter should read "(black)"

      14. Figure S2 panels J and K: it would be helpful to indicate what is being measured on the Y axis, e.g., Mean intensity of dmiR-1 levels. This is true for the various panels in other figures labeled CTCF on their Y axes.

      CROSS-CONSULTATION COMMENTS

      All reviewers agree that this is a well-designed study and that the manuscript is well written. The missing Hand-Gal4 control mentioned by Reviewers 1 and 3 seems an important element that is missing. These reviewers also call into question the FISH quantification methodology. These two issues seem the most critical to resolve. The other additional experiments suggested deserve input from the authors as to whether they already have relevant data that can be cited, whether they are important to pursue or if they go beyond the scope of the current study. Reviewers 1 and 2 agree that further discussion of the fly model that does not show DCM should be provided. The question on fibrosis in the fly models is germane (Reviewer 3), although it might be indirectly addressed by the fact that a collagen molecule is upregulated here (a major player in fibrosis). All of the minor comments are reasonable and should be addressed by the authors.

      Significance

      This paper is significant in that it draws a more direct connection between the reduction in a microRNA that occurs in myotonic dystrophy and dilated cardiomyopathy that is affiliated with this disease. It shows that a form of collagen that is overexpressed in both Drosophila models and humans with DM1-caused DCM is causative/correlated with the increased heart diameters. Thus, the fly model provides important insights into the link between the mutant gene and the cardiac phenotype. This work will be of interest to those studying skeletal and cardiac muscle disease and scientists interested in developing potential therapeutics for treating DM1-caused DCM. Note that my expertise is in producing and studying skeletal muscle and cardiac disease models in the Drosophila system, which is relevant to evaluating this paper and defining its significance in the field.

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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      The paper titled "Deregulations of miR-1 and its target Multiplexin promote dilated cardiomyopathy associated with myotonic dystrophy type 1" by the Jagla group studied the effect of down-regulation of miR-1 in myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1) using fly as the disease model. The study is based on previous findings that in DM1 MBNL1 is sequestered, CELF1 is stabilized, and miR-1 is down regulated. The authors further identified Multiplexin to be the target effector of miR-1 in the fly heart and studied its function with a series of gain- and loss-of-function and rescue experiments. The authors' findings represent a significant advance in understanding the genetic mechanisms that can explain the pathogenic causes of dilated cardiomyopathy associated with DM1. Overall, this paper is well written and organized, with well-designed experiments and a clear model. A few additional experiments are suggested to further strengthen the conclusion.

      Major points:

      1. Wild-type and Hand-Gal4 controls are missing for all experiments (only UAS lines outcrossed to w1118 are displayed). Also, Hand-Gal4 driver lines can cause mild dilation by itself, which would influence interpretation and statistics of data. Also, the authors should consider to confirm the miR-1 phenotype obtained with the sponge with a miR mutant, and also combine miR-1 het with miR sponge (worsening of phenotype?). Alternatively, knockdown efficiency of miR should be tested by qPCR or HCR/smFISH.

      2. It is surprising that one of the DM1 fly models, overexpression of 960 CTG repeats, did not show DCM, considering it is the primary cause of DM1 in humans due to excessive CTG repeats. It should be discussed why Hand>960 CTG does not lead to DCM, since the authors claim that this model with high number of CTG repeats shows a strong phenotype. Are Hand>bru3 and Hand>mbl stronger? Is miR-1 (and Mp) unaltered in these flies with 960 CTG repeats? It would be interesting to overexpress 960 CTG in a miR-1 or mbl heterozygous mutant background, which may produce DCM.

      3. In Figure 2H, the mean intensity is displayed as the readout of the smFISH quantification of miR-1 levels. If understood correctly, this is the wrong readout since smFISH detects single molecule fluorescence of transcripts, so the number of transcripts should be quantified. Furthermore, Hand-Gal4 is not expressed in the ventral longitudinal muscles (VLM). As a proof of principle, miR-1 levels should be quantified in VLM (no change in transcripts levels expected).

      4. Fig. 5: Since DCM- DM1 patients still show elevated COL15A1 levels but no DCM, it would be interesting to know if DCM phenotypes are COL15A1-dosage dependent. This could be easily tested in the fly model by testing UAS-Mp overexpression at different temperatures.

      5. The authors elegantly show rescue of Hand>Bru3 flies by Mp RNAi. Their model would be further strengthened if a similar rescue can be shown with Hand>mblRNAi.

      Minor points:

      1. Fig. 1A,B: Ventral longitudinal muscles are covering the hearts on these images, so it's difficult to see the heart dimensions. This holds true for images throughout the manuscript. Where were the diameters measured (by the valves)? A better description and illustration would help the reader understand the situation.

      2. Fig. 1 A',B': White line does not reflect the location where SOHA data are measured and should be horizontal for consistency. Where is ventral vs. dorsal?

      3. Fig. 1D-F: Annotate 1 and 5 weeks in Figure, please. Also, why were 1 and 5 weeks tested? Is there an age-component in DM1 phenotype severity?

      4. Fig. 3A: Transcriptional analysis was done at which stage of development?

      5. Fig. 3: It is not clear, in which set the authors looked for miR-1 bindings sites (144 genes or the whole set)? Not well annotated. What is meant by 'heart-targeted'?

      6. Fig. 4C,D: It looks like they are not shown in the same dorsal-ventral orientation. Also, it looks Mp is overexpressed in the VLM, but Hand-Gal4 only drives in the cardiomyocytes and pericardial cells? How was quantification done?

      7. Fig. 4I: Why are some myofibers indicated in red in the model?

      8. Fig. 5 D-E: Genotypes need to be better indicated in the graphs. Did the authors control for multiple UAS sites? Is UPRT a UAS control?

      In the first paragraph of Result 3, the last sentence seems unfinished. "We identified a set of candidate genes, of which Multiplexin (Mp)"

      In Method, the in silico screening for miR-1 target should be explained in more detail.

      Significance

      The presented data is a significant advance our knowledge of our understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved in DM1. I expect that scientists in the muscular disease field and beyond will find this work of high interest.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      _Reply to the reviewers _

      Note: the three reviewers who provided comments were identified as Reviewers 2-4

      Reviewer #2

      1) I could not open any of the movies (while those associated with the BioRXiv preprint were fine). Some of the movies could be combined to minimize download/open clicking sequences.

      • The movies were uploaded as .avi files, as per Review Commons instructions, and we tested our ability to view them on several computers at our institution before submission. We are relieved the reviewer was able to access the .mp4 formatted movies via BioRXiv. We will ask the Review Commons Managing Editor to make sure there are no problems with the videos uploaded with the revised manuscript.*

      2) I really dislike reviewing papers without line numbers

      • Line numbers have been added to the revised version.*

      3) The manuscript could be made more relevant to malaria researchers by briefly discussing red cell invasion by merozoites (a single constriction and force against the cell cortex), migration of ookinetes (multiple constrictions during mosquito gut penetration) and sporozoites (long distance migration), but this is not a must.

      • Constrictions during ookinete migration are now mentioned on lines 265-269, and the discussion of the constriction at the moving junction has been broadened to include other apicomplexan parasites lines 270-278.*

      4) I would limit reporting of numbers to two digits, e.g. instead of 46.3% make it 46%; 2.56 +/- 0.38 to 2,6 +/- 0,4 etc

      > We have adjusted all numbers in the text and figures to the appropriate number of significant figures based on measurement precision.

      5) Millions of deaths, please rewrite, more like around 1 million from malaria and cryptosporidium; use citation (WHO)

      > Done (line 40)

      6) Motility: please don't mention flagella, which are used for swimming, in the same sentence / phrase / logic connection as lamellipodia, which are used for substrate based migration

      > The sentence has been rewritten to make clear that cilia and flagella are not organelles involved in the substrate-dependent motility of other eukaryotic cells (lines 47-49).

      7) In Figure 1B, I can see one microsphere and it's not clear if it moves completely back to the original position. In the movie it looks like it goes completely back, maybe exchange the last panel of the figure with a last frame from the movie? Or maybe better: replace with frames from movie 2, which is more striking and shows many beads being displaced?

      > As suggested, Figure 1B now shows frames from the other movie (former Video 2), where bead movement is more obvious.

      8) Please add the entire figure S1 to Figure 1. This is important for readers to understand and 'deserves' full figure status. Same for Figure S2.

      *> We have moved most of former Figure S1 into a new main Figure 2, as suggested. We left the two graphs as Supplemental data (new Figure S1), since these graphs simply show that parasite motility in fibrin is similar to the previously described motility of parasites in Matrigel. *

      *> Figure S2 has been moved to the main text, as suggested (in new Figures 3 and 6). *

      9) I would encourage the authors to elaborate more on the data on Figure S2. It appears that motile parasites did mostly not exert forces above the level for non-motile parasites; for how much motility did they observe forces? The meaning of the x-axis does not become clear. Are those individual parasites per time point or time points of one parasite or of the analyzed matrix volumes over several parasites? How many parasites where observed? This is stated more clearly later but needs to be done already here.

      > We have moved the data in former Suppl. Figure S2 into the main figures, broken it into two parts (Figures 3 and 6B-E) and included a new 3D volume view and additional explanatory detail in the figure legends and text to clarify these points of confusion (lines 100-116, 500-507, 564-570).

      10) Please change 0.042 um into 42 nm etc

      *> Done, lines 113-116. *

      11) Please move some of the data in Figure S8 to the main figures e.g. Figure 4, where it would make a nice contrast / comparison to the mic2 mutant. Please also put a WT for comparison.

      > Done; see revised Figure 6.

      12) I wonder if the defect in directional migration of the mic2 mutant is also partly due to the parasite not being able to squeeze through narrow matrix pores and hence is deflected more often. While I understand (and agree) with the authors observation (interpretation) of the wt parasites not squeezing but pulling, it's hard to think that such squeezing would not still play a part.

      *> The idea that the parasite needs to squeeze its way through pores in the matrix is intuitively appealing (and, in fact, what we had expected to see) but there is currently no data to support it. If squeezing were occurring, we should see an outward deformation of the matrix as the parasite pushes on the matrix fibers, but this is something we have never observed. We therefore think it is unlikely that the loss of directional migration is due to an inability to squeeze through pores in order to “stay on track”. *

      13) Hueschen et al is now on BioRXiv

      > The BioRXiv citation has been added (lines 293, 320).

      14) The shaving off of antibodies could be brought into context to the work on sporozoites by Aliprandini Nat Micro 2018 and on trypanosomes by Enstler Cell 2007 (but not a must)

      *> The two studies mentioned are intriguing and may be related to the well-documented anterior to posterior flux and shedding of GPI-anchored proteins from the surface of gliding Toxoplasma tachyzoites. What we are showing here is slightly different: the fluorescent antibodies on the cell surface seem to be “shaved” backwards at the constriction, much like surface bound antibodies are shaved backwards at the moving junction during invasion (Dubremetz 1985). In other words, there is a discontinuity in the density of surface staining at the constriction/junction. All of these processes may be related, but this is only speculation at this point and since the shaving of antibody at the constriction is a minor point of the paper (meant only to illustrate another similarity between 3D motility and invasion), we would prefer not to try to tie it to these other observations which may or may not be related. *

      15) Anterior-posterior flux: best experimental evidence for this is Quadt et al. ACS Nano 2016 for Plasmodium and Stadler MBoC 2017 for Toxoplasma. The common observations and differences could be discussed as they pertain to the current study

      > These two papers are now cited in our discussion of the linear motor model along with our speculation that the constriction reflects the motility-relevant zone of engagement of this rearward flux with ligands in the matrix (lines 319-322).

      16) The loss of mic2 could lead to the loss of the capability to form discrete adhesion sites that reveal themselves as the observed rings in 3D. I suggest to be careful to hypothesize that the absence of this and MyoA reveals a completely different motility mechanism. To me it seems more likely that the absence of the proteins means that the existing mechanism doesn't work perfectly any more, ie the highly tuned migration machinery misses a key part and malfunctions.

      *> The paragraph in question offered possible explanations for how parasites lacking the constriction could in fact move at normal speeds, not that motility was negatively affected. We have tried to make this more clear in the revision (lines 352-354), before describing the 3 possible explanations. *

      17) Maybe reflect on whether 'search strategy' might be a better word than 'guidance system'

      *> We have replaced the term “guidance system” in the title (lines 1-2), abstract (lines 33-36) and introduction (line 75) with more conservative references to the ability of the parasite to move directionally. The only place the term “guidance system” remains is in the final paragraph of the discussion, which is more speculative in nature, and where we now suggest it to be “part of” a guidance system. *

      Reviewer #3

      1) Extracellular matrix choice. The authors track the parasite movement first on Matrigel and next on fibrin. The authors exemplify the fibrin matrix on an image on Suppl. Fig 1 that shows a relatively quite large pore size, similar or greater than parasite size. Was the analysis done on parasites touching the fibers?

      *> Previous Suppl Figure 1A showed a confocal image at only one z-plane which did indeed give the impression that the pores are relatively large. We have changed this image to a more informative maximum intensity projection (New Figure 2A) and included a video showing the entire imaging volume (new Video 4), which makes clear that the matrix contains many small fibers and that the pores are smaller than the previous single z-plane suggested, so the parasite is likely to be near to or in contact with fibers of the matrix at all times. In Suppl Figure 1D we purposely used a less dense matrix in order to make the matrix deformation more obvious to the eye. The density of the matrix in Fig. 1D has been added to the legend. *

      2) Lack of movement of parasites. In many figures of the articles it is revealed that the majority of parasites in fibrin remain immobile (Suppl Fig 1, Fig 2, Video 5, Suppl Fig 2, Suppl Fig 8). The number of immobile parasites in Matrigel seem to be lower than in fibrin (Suppl Fig 1B) although no quantification is shown. How does the movement in fibrin and Matrigel compare? How does this compares with movement in stiff substrates in 2D? Could the lack of movement be caused by the large pore site in fibrin?.

      > We have added a panel to Suppl. Figure S1 showing that the proportions of parasites moving in fibrin vs Matrigel are not significantly different. In fact, none of our measured motility parameters are different between fibrin and Matrigel. Not all parasites move during the 80s of capture used for these matrix comparisons; some of the parasites are likely dead, but others may have simply not initiated motility during this time window. We typically see between 30-50% movement in 3D motility assays of this duration and similar numbers in 2D trail assays although we have not explored the effect of 2D substrate stiffness.

      3) Considering parasite movement: The authors consider that 3SD is a cutoff for considering parasite displacement. However, several timepoints fall behind this cutoff in the control without parasites and the knockouts with restricted movement.

      > We chose three standard deviations from the mean as our cutoff, in order to eliminate 99.7% of the noise. Since we calculate 16807 vectors per comparison, this leaves us with ~50 vectors above the cutoff even in samples with no moving parasites. Not surprisingly, these vectors are found at random locations in the volume. New Figures 3 and 6B-E and the associated text (lines 100-116, 500-507, 564-570) hopefully clarify this point adequately; it is quite obvious in Figure 3C which vectors correspond to parasite-induced displacements and which correspond to random noise.

      4) Imaging: Although the authors show a very detailed an illustrative table of the imaging acquisition conditions in table 1, it is unclear which microscope the authors used, as two microscopes are described in the methods section, a Nikon Eclipse TE300 widefield microscope and a Nikon AIR-ER confocal microscope. Which images were taken in each system? For the location of Table1 in the manuscript it seems that most images were taken with the Nikon Eclipse. Although this microscope has control over z, the images are quite noisy. How does the lack of confocallity might interfere with the analysis?

      > The high temporal resolution needed for 3D force mapping of cells that move several microns per second meant that all these experiments were done using a widefield microscope equipped with a piezo-driven z-stage. The fastest confocal we tested was not as fast as the widefield. However, spatial resolution suffered as a result of having to use widefield, particularly in z,* and this did indeed make our data more noisy as suggested by the reviewer. This may be why we were unable to detect fibrin deformation in the knockout parasites. The only data collected on the confocal microscope were those shown in new Figure 2A; we have clarified this on lines 421-427. Future studies will explore other imaging modalities such as light sheet microscopy in an attempt to achieve better spatial resolution while maintaining the high frame rates required for force mapping. *

      5) Nuclear constriction. The authors did not show any image or video exemplifying this.

      The images in Suppl. Figure 6 have been replaced with data that show the nuclear shape more clearly.

      6) Knockouts: The authors did not explain how did they generated the knockouts in the methods or did now show the efficacy of the knockout in any figure. If these knockout strains were a gift (I did not find it on the manuscript), the authors should indicate this more explicitly and reference the manuscript where they were described for the first time.

      > Both of the stable knockout lines used were generous gifts from Dr. Markus Meissner. We cited the original papers describing these lines in the text and thanked Dr. Meissner for providing them in the Acknowledgements section. We have now included an additional citation at the first mention of each of the knockouts (lines 174, 188) to make it even clearer where they came from.

      7) Discussion: Although the experimental methodology is sound the authors seem to make many assumptions and speculations on the discussion as how the appearance of this ring/constriction on the parasite translates into the helical movement of the parasite or the coupling of the ring with the cytoskeleton. Live imaging of actin dynamics or mathematical modelling could be used to support their claims.

      > We imaged parasites expressing the actin chromobody but were unable to visualize a ring of actin at the constriction. However, due to the speed of the parasites and the need for a fast frame rate (~15 ms per image) to reconstruct the 3D image volumes, the actin chromobody signal could be under our threshold of detection. We need to develop new, more sensitive ways to visualize proteins at the constriction, and this will be a major focus of our work going forward.

      *> We fully concur that mathematical modeling such as the work recently done by Hueschen et al on actin flow during motility and by Pavlou et al on the role of parasite twist during invasion has much to offer our understanding of these processes. Similar approaches may provide support to the speculations (not claims!) we offer in the discussion and, although beyond the scope of the current study, are a direction we intend to take this work in the future – particularly if we are able to improve the signal-to-noise in our force mapping. *

      8) Quantification of experiments missing: Overall, the main figures lack quantification that sometimes can be found in the supplemental information and sometimes is missing. I would suggest including quantifications next to the events described in the main figures). Likewise, some of the supplemental figures lack quantification (Suppl Fig 7, how many parasites showed this protein trail?)… Overall, the authors should indicate how many parasites were quantified in each figure. As they usually refer to number of constrictions. This is overall a problem in main figures 3 and 5. Or for example in Suppl Fig 5: How many parasites were quantified in this figure? The authors only show number of constrictions, and as the authors described, a parasite might have more than one constriction.

      > We have added further detail on the number of events/parasites quantified to both the figure legends and text throughout the manuscript, including the specific examples noted by the reviewer.

      9) Videos: The videos lack scale of time. Although this that can be found in main figures, it would be helpful to have the annotation in the videos. Likewise, some references for positions in videos, such as the cross found on Fig1 would be helpful for parasites that present little movement.

      > Time stamps have been added to all videos as suggested, and crosshairs have been applied to new Figure 1B and Suppl. Figures 7 and 8 to make the movement of the parasites more obvious. *

      *

      Reviewer #4

      1) I am not sure about the premise that the "linear model" of gliding motility predicts uniformly forward direction. Previous videos of 2D gliding show sporadic motility, changes in direction, or even reversal of direction are not infrequent. However, the current model could explain these behaviors if one or more of the following conditions occur: 1) myosin motors might be coordinating activated to initiate motility, followed by relaxation, 2) actin fibers might be transiently arrayed in clusters that change density and polarity over time, or 3) adhesins, necessary to generate traction, might vary in density and spatial orientation across the surface of the parasite. Changes in these properties would be expected result in zones that promote or disfavor local forces needed for motility - and reversal of direction could occur when forward forces relax and external elastic forces predominate.

      > The potential explanations offered by the reviewer for the frequent changes in direction of zoite motility are intriguing and worth exploring experimentally. The ability of actin fibers to periodically reverse polarity, or the presence of counteracting elastic forces are not components of the “standard” linear motor model of motility but, if they occur, could explain the patch gliding phenomenon and help refine our understanding of motility. Since the data in this manuscript do not in the end either strongly support or disprove the linear motor model – this may ultimately require higher resolution force mapping methods that can detect the forces responsible for forward motion – we have de-emphasized potential problems with the model in the introduction and deleted specific discussion of patch gliding as one of these problems (lines 61-64).

      2) The model favored here: "we propose that force is generated, at least in part, by the rearward translocation of the subset of actin filaments that are coupled to adhesins at the circular ring of attachment" does not seem fundamentally different from the current model - other than it focuses the forces at a critical junction that the parasite migrates through. It seems to me that this is a refinement of the current model and not a replacement. As such, the authors might focus on how their data improve the model rather than pointing out prior deficiencies (although I get that editors like this style).

      > We agree with the reviewer and have modified the text to be more circumspect on this issue* (lines 319-331). *

      3) The finding that the absence of MIC2 affects the constriction formed by inward pull on the matrix is quite convincing and interesting. However, mutants that cannot form the constriction, still move at similar speeds. This suggest that the inward force is different from the motor itself and affects its ability to impart direction, rather than the ability to move per see. The interpretation of the MyoA defect is complicated since motility is certain to be disrupted, the potential role of an independent inward force may no longer be detectable.

      > We agree with the reviewer on this point as well: the forces we have observed to date cannot explain forward motion. We stated this previously and have now emphasized the point further *(lines 322-324, 352-357). Because the parasite is moving forward, the forces responsible must be there but are likely below our threshold of detection. In order to visualize these forces, we are going to need new imaging modalities that can achieve better signal-to-noise than our current setup at the high frame rates required for force mapping. That said, we new data we have added to the manuscript are at least consistent with the narrow diameter ring of the constriction making a contribution to the parasite’s forward motion (new Suppl. Figure 10 and lines 347-351) *

      4) Although I agree with the authors that there are striking parallels between motility in 3D and cell invasion, I am not certain about their conclusion that the construction seen during cell entry is due to the parasite pulling inwardly. When entering the host cell, the parasite must also navigate the dense subcortical actin network, which likely also aids in forming the constriction that is observed. It would be interesting to record this pattern under conditions where host cell actin is destabilized while parasite motility is intact- for example using cytochalasin D to treat wild type host cells during invasion by resistant parasites.

      *> We do not conclude that the constriction during invasion is due to the parasites pulling inwardly, but we do propose that this possibility needs to be considered based on the noted similarities between invasion and motility and our clear (and somewhat surprising) demonstration that the moving parasite pulls on the matrix at the constriction during motility. During invasion, the parasite may indeed have to squeeze through the dense subcortical network – or it may use secreted proteins to loosen up the network so that no squeezing is required. We just don’t know, and our purpose here was simply to put this alternative possibility on the table because we believe it is a viable possibility that follows from the data presented. *

      > We thank the reviewer for the suggestion of testing what happens when cytoD resistant parasites invade in the presence of cytoD; this is a clever idea that we will likely pursue in future work.

      5) Not all of the color patterns shown in Figure 1A are consistent with the model. For example, GAP40 (yellow) does not appear in the model, there are two MLC boxes, but they are different shades, and ELC1/2 does not appear in the model.

      > We thank the reviewer for catching this error; it has now been fixed.

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      Referee #3

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      The study provides new insight into the gliding motility of Toxoplasma gondii through the use of time lapse video microscopy combined with 3D traction force mapping. Substantial new insight is provided through the discovery that the parasite pulls inward on the matrix, creating a moving junction that it glides through during forward motility. This process of migration in 3D thus closely resembles the invasion of host cells. These data carefully documented and improve our understanding of how gliding motility operates. There are a few issues surrounding how previous data are presented and the relationship between this new inward force and the motor complex that require better explanation.

      Major points

      1. I am not sure about the premise that the "linear model" of gliding motility predicts uniformly forward direction. Previous videos of 2D gliding show sporadic motility, changes in direction, or even reversal of direction are not infrequent. However, the current model could explain these behaviors if one or more of the following conditions occur: 1) myosin motors might be coordinating activated to initiate motility, followed by relaxation, 2) actin fibers might be transiently arrayed in clusters that change density and polarity over time, or 3) adhesins, necessary to generate traction, might vary in density and spatial orientation across the surface of the parasite. Changes in these properties would be expected result in zones that promote or disfavor local forces needed for motility - and reversal of direction could occur when forward forces relax and external elastic forces predominate.
      2. The model favored here: "we propose that force is generated, at least in part, by the rearward translocation of the subset of actin filaments that are coupled to adhesins at the circular ring of attachment" does not seem fundamentally different from the current model - other than it focuses the forces at a critical junction that the parasite migrates through. It seems to me that this is a refinement of the current model and not a replacement. As such, the authors might focus on how their data improve the model rather than pointing out prior deficiencies (although I get that editors like this style).
      3. The finding that the absence of MIC2 affects the constriction formed by inward pull on the matrix is quite convincing and interesting. However, mutants that cannot form the constriction, still move at similar speeds. This suggest that the inward force is different from the motor itself and affects its ability to impart direction, rather than the ability to move per see. The interpretation of the MyoA defect is complicated since motility is certain to be disrupted, the potential role of an independent inward force may no longer be detectable.
      4. Although I agree with the authors that there are striking parallels between motility in 3D and cell invasion, I am not certain about their conclusion that the construction seen during cell entry is due to the parasite pulling inwardly. When entering the host cell, the parasite must also navigate the dense subcortical actin network, which likely also aids in forming the constriction that is observed. It would be interesting to record this pattern under conditions where host cell actin is destabilized while parasite motility is intact- for example using cytochalasin D to treat wild type host cells during invasion by resistant parasites.

      Minor points

      Not all of the color patterns shown in Figure 1A are consistent with the model. For example, GAP40 (yellow) does not appear in the model, there are two MLC boxes, but they are different shades, and ELC1/2 does not appear in the model.

      Significance

      The study provides a conceptual advance that improves our understanding of gliding motility in apicomplexan parasites. It will spur future research in the area to better define the process, although it does not yet offer a new mechanistic foundation.

      The work will be of interest to those working on motility in general and parasite systems in specific.

      I have worked on cell motility and invasion in this group of organisms for many years, although we currently focus on other questions.

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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      In this manuscript, Stadler et al., characterize the biophysics behind Toxoplasma gondii locomotion on extracellular matrix. The authors describe the generation of a circular/ring structure that pull extracellular matrix in a highly localized way, creating a constriction on the parasite accompanied by a forward movement. In addition, they characterize the movement in two knockouts of parasite myosin and adhesins. The characterization of the biophysical forces necessary for parasites to complete their life cycles is timely and necessary and relevant to improve our understanding and to design new antiparasitic strategies. I would like to praise the authors for this effort However, a few major and minor corrections and clarifications are necessary before the publication of the article.

      Major Comments:

      Extracellular matrix choice. The authors track the parasite movement first on Matrigel and next on fibrin. The authors exemplify the fibrin matrix on an image on Suppl. Fig 1 that shows a relatively quite large pore size, similar or greater than parasite size. Was the analysis done on parasites touching the fibers? Lack of movement of parasites. In many figures of the articles it is revealed that the majority of parasites in fibrin remain immobile (Suppl Fig 1, Fig 2, Video 5, Suppl Fig 2, Suppl Fig 8). The number of immobile parasites in Matrigel seem to be lower than in fibrin (Suppl Fig 1B) although no quantification is shown. How does the movement in fibrin and Matrigel compare? How does this compares with movement in stiff substrates in 2D? Could the lack of movement be caused by the large pore site in fibrin?. Considering parasite movement: The authors consider that 3SD is a cutoff for considering parasite displacement. However, several timepoints fall behind this cutoff in the control without parasites and the knockouts with restricted movement.

      Imaging: Although the authors show a very detailed an illustrative table of the imaging acquisition conditions in table 1, it is unclear which microscope the authors used, as two microscopes are described in the methods section, a Nikon Eclipse TE300 widefield microscope and a Nikon AIR-ER confocal microscope. Which images were taken in each system? For the location of Table1 in the manuscript it seems that most images were taken with the Nikon Eclipse. Although this microscope has control over z, the images are quite noisy. How does the lack of confocallity might interfere with the analysis? Nuclear constriction. The authors did not show any image or video exemplifying this. Knockouts: The authors did not explain how did they generated the knockouts in the methods or did now show the efficacy of the knockout in any figure. If these knockout strains were a gift (I did not find it on the manuscript), the authors should indicate this more explicitly and reference the manuscript where they were described for the first time.

      Discussion: Although the experimental methodology is sound the authors seem to make many assumptions and speculations on the discussion as how the appearance of this ring/constriction on the parasite translates into the helical movement of the parasite or the coupling of the ring with the cytoskeleton. Live imaging of actin dynamics or mathematical modelling could be used to support their claims.

      Minor comments:

      Quantification of experiments missing: Overall, the main figures lack quantification that sometimes can be found in the supplemental information and sometimes is missing. I would suggest including quantifications next to the events described in the main figures). Likewise, some of the supplemental figures lack quantification (Suppl Fig 7, how many parasites showed this protein trail?).

      Overall, the authors should indicate how many parasites were quantified in each figure. As they usually refer to number of constrictions. This is overall a problem in main figures 3 and 5. Or for example in Suppl Fig 5: How many parasites were quantified in this figure? The authors only show number of constrictions, and as the authors described, a parasite might have more than one constriction.

      Videos: The videos lack scale of time. Although this that can be found in main figures, it would be helpful to have the anotation in the videos. Likewise, some references for positions in videos, such as the cross found on Fig1 would be helpful for parasites that present little movement.

      Significance

      Host-parasite interactions are driven by a combinations of biochemical and mechanical factors, but most research focuses on the molecular side. This article aims to better define the mechanical properties behind Toxoplasma movement. This is important, because understanding the biophysical determinants behind parasite movement is essential and has been historically ignored. To my knowledge, this manuscript is among the few that aim to define the physical cues driving toxoplasma movement.

      Although the article is focused on the mechanobiology of Toxoplasma interactions with the extracellular matrix, the article is easy to read and accessible to molecular and cellular parasitologists/biologists.

      My background covers host-parasite interactions in 3D bioengineered models. This review has been done together with an expert in mechanobiology. Most of the article falls behind our expertise except for computational modelling of single cell displacements.

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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Unicellular apicomplexan parasites including those causing toxoplasmosis and malaria can migrate at extremely high speed and invade host cells using a specialized actin-myosin motility machinery termed the glideosome and a motility mode termed gliding during which they do not change their shape. In their paper Ward and colleagues examine the migration of T. gondii tachyzoites in 3D matrixes that are fluorescently labelled and hence allow the detection of their displacements and calculation of force vectors. The authors discover that tachyzoites move by a high degree of continuous constrictions reminiscent of those seen during cell invasion and probe not only wild type parasites but also two key mutants, which reveal a striking absence of the constrictions and changed trajectories.

      The manuscript is well written and should be understandable to the wide audience it is written for but I would encourage the authors to move some of their striking data from the supplement to the main figures.

      General critique:

      I could not open any of the movies (while those associated with the BioRXiv preprint were fine)

      I really dislike reviewing papers without line numbers

      The manuscript could be made more relevant to malaria researchers by briefly discussing red cell invasion by merozoites (a single constriction and force against the cell cortex), migration of ookinetes (multiple constrictions during mosquito gut penetration) and sporozoites (long distance migration), but this is not a must.

      I would limit reporting of numbers to two digits, e.g. instead of 46.3% make it 46%; 2.56 +/- 0.38 to 2,6 +/- 0,4 etc

      Further suggestions:

      Introduction: Millions of deaths, please rewrite, more like around 1 million from malaria and cryptosporidium; use citation (WHO)

      Motility: please don't mention flagella, which are used for swimming, in the same sentence / phrase / logic connection as lamellipodia, which are used for substrate based migration

      In Figure 1B, I can see one microsphere and it's not clear if it moves completely back to the original position. In the movie it looks like it goes completely back, maybe exchange the last panel of the figure with a last frame from the movie? Or maybe better: replace with frames from movie 2, which is more striking and shows many beads being displaced?

      Please add the entire figure S1 to Figure 1. This is important for readers to understand and 'deserves' full figure status. Same for Figure S2.

      I would encourage the authors to elaborate more on the data on Figure S2. It appears that motile parasites did mostly not exert forces above the level for non-motile parasites; for how much motility did they observe forces? The meaning of the x-axis does not become clear. Are those individual parasites per time point or time points of one parasite or of the analyzed matrix volumes over several parasites? How many parasites where observed? This is stated more clearly later but needs to be done already here.

      Please change 0.042 um into 42 nm etc

      Please move some of the data in Figure S8 to the main figures e.g. Figure 4, where it would make a nice contrast / comparison to the mic2 mutant. Please also put a WT for comparison.

      I wonder if the defect in directional migration of the mic2 mutant is also partly due to the parasite not being able to squeeze through narrow matrix pores and hence is deflected more often. While I understand (and agree) with the authors observation (interpretation) of the wt parasites not squeezing but pulling, it's hard to think that such squeezing would not still play a part.

      Discussion: Hueschen et al is now on BioRXiv

      The shaving off of antibodies could be brought into context to the work on sporozoites by Aliprandini Nat Micro 2018 and on trypanosomes by Enstler Cell 2007 (but not a must)

      Anterior-posterior flux: best experimental evidence for this is Quadt et al. ACS Nano 2016 for Plasmodium and Stadler MBoC 2017 for Toxoplasma. The common observations and differences could be discussed as they pertain to the current study

      The loss of mic2 could lead to the loss of the capability to form discrete adhesion sites that reveal themselves as the observed rings in 3D. I suggest to be careful to hypothesize that the absence of this and MyoA reveals a completely different motility mechanism. To me it seems more likely that the absence of the proteins means that the existing mechanism doesn't work perfectly any more, ie the highly tuned migration machinery misses a key part and malfunctions.

      Maybe reflect on whether 'search strategy' might be a better word than 'guidance system'

      Some of the movies could be combined to minimize download/open clicking sequences.

      Significance

      This manuscript provides both a truly remarkable technical advance and interesting insights into the way these parasites move, which will likely also be of relevance to the way other parasites of the same group of organisms move. Due to the uniqueness of eukaryotic gliding motility, it's high speed and the importance of infection, this manuscript will be of general interest to cell biologists studying cell migration and to infection disease researcher studying processes of pathogenesis. It will also appeal to biophysicists looking at cellular force generation. The paper is comparable in insight/relevance to recent work by Del Rosario et al, 2019; Pavlou et al., 2020, two studies that also use high end imaging and biophysical methods to understand parasite migration and invasion. My expertise: cell biology of parasites

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      Reply to the reviewers

      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity):

      Comment 1.1: Figure 4. The figure legend and sub-figures are inconsistent. They do not match.

      Response 1.1: Apologies for the error. In the revised manuscript we have changed the order of panels in Figure 4 to make it consistent with the figure legends.

      Comment 1.2: Figure 4. For the Sanger sequencing trace of the edited HEK293 cells, why there are noise peak?

      Response 1.2: It is a heterozygous knock-in, with only one allele has a mutation. Moreover, it is a PCR product we have sequenced hence it looks noisy.

      Comment 1.3: How many single cell clones were chosen for further analyses after CRISPR genome editing? The authors should do single cell filtering by Flow Cytometer or others.

      Response 1.3: We had one clone with heterozygous knock-in.

      Comment 1.4: The authors conducted RT-qPCR to quantify mRNA expression, RNA-Sequencing should be more accurate.

      Response 1.4: We had one clone with heterozygous knock-in hence we used this clone for RT-qPCR. As reviewer no 3 suggested, RNA sequencing is not needed to show the effect of this mutation on genes in cis.

      Comment 1.5: The discussion is too long, please shorten.

      Response 1.5: In the revised manuscript we have shortened the discussion.

      Reviewer #1 (Significance):

      This study investigates the genetic and molecular mechanisms of intellectual disability (ID) by integrating whole genome sequencing and follow up functional explorations. The results provide novel insights into genetic aetiology of ID.

      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity):

      The manuscript by De Vas et al describes an investigation of the contribution of non-coding de novo variants to intellectual disability (ID). The authors perform whole genome sequencing (WGS) of 21 ID probands and both parents, and combine these data with WGS from 30 trios previously sequenced. The authors use publicly available data from the Roadmap Epigenomics project to identify sets of enhancers hypothesised to have a role in ID, such fetal brain specific enhances and enhancers associated with known ID-associated genes. These enhancer sets are then tested for enrichment of non-coding de novo variants ID, using publicly available de novo variant data from the Genome of Netherlands (GoNL) project as a control comparison. The authors report that de novo variants in ID are significantly enriched within fetal brain-specific and human-gained enhancers. This is perhaps the main finding of the study. The authors also identify recurrent de novo variants in ID within clusters of enhancers that regulate the genes CSMD1, OLDM1 and POU3F3 in ID. A number of functional experiments are performed to provide further insights in the mechanisms by which de novo variants impact the expression of putative target genes; for example, data is provide that show de novo variants observed in ID within a SOX8 enhancer leads to reduced expression of the SOX8 gene. In conclusion, the authors claim that their data support de novo variants in fetal brain enhancers as contributing to the aetiology of ID.

      Major comments.<br /> The study uses leading edge genomic technologies to generate WGS in a new ID sample, which is used to investigate the role of non-coding variants to ID aetiology. The manuscript is in general very well written. However, a weakness of the study is a very small sample size, which should result in low statistical power. Despite this power consideration, the authors report very strong P values for their main findings. My main concern with the study is that the methodology used to evaluate enrichment of de novo variants within specific sets of enhancers is unclear, and therefore as it currently stands, I am unable to be confident in the findings. I am also concerned about whether data from the Genome of the Netherlands project is a suitable control comparison, given technical differences that are likely to exist between this and the ID data set. I further explain these methodological concerns below:

      Comment 2.1: When testing for the enrichment of de novo variants, the most commonly used approach in the field involves testing whether the observed number of de novo variants in a given genomic region is greater than the number expected by chance, using a Poisson test. Here, the expected number of de novo variants is derived from trinucleotide mutation rates. This method was first proposed by Samocha et al 2014. The current authors use trinucleotide mutation rates to estimate the expected number of de novos among enhancer sets, and cite the Samocha paper, but my understanding is that they do not use a Poisson test to evaluate enrichment. Instead, they use the expected number of mutations among the enhancer sets to normalise the observed number of de novo variants, but it is not clear to me why this is performed, and also what data and the statistical test is actually being used to evaluate de novo variant enrichment? I can guess at what they have done, but the methods section outlining this test should be more clearly explained.

      Response 2.1: The Samocha et al 2004 paper provides a statistical framework to estimate the expected number of DNMs under neutral evolution. However, our aim was not to estimate the enrichment of DNM in fetal brain enhancers with a background rate of mutation (see the answer to the next comments for a detailed explanation). Our aim was to investigate whether in our ID cohort DNMs were enriched in the enhancers that are specifically active in the fetal brain or the enhancers that are active in specific subsections of the adult brain. Hence, we compared the number of DNMs in the fetal brain enhancers (Fetal brain enhancers and human gain enhancers) with the number of DNMs in enhancers of various sub-sections of the adult brain. In Table S6 of the revised manuscript, we have highlighted the values that were used for the statistical test. We used a T-test to estimate whether fetal brain enhancers were enriched for ID DNM as compared to adult brain enhancers.

      However, as pointed out by the reviewer in comment 2.3, the sequence composition and overall size in base pair vary significantly between fetal brain enhancers, human gain enhancers and enhancers from adult brain subsections thus they may have different background mutation rates. Hence, before doing any comparison between DNMs in various enhancer sets (fetal vs adult), it is important to normalise them to the same background mutation rate for valid comparison. Hence, we used the framework provided in Samocha et al 2014 paper to estimate the background mutation rate of various enhancer sets and normalised them to the background mutation rate of fetal brain-specific enhancer set.

      For example, the background mutation rate for fetal brain-specific enhancers is 0.970718 and we observed 53 DNMs. Similarly, the background mutation rate for the adult brain sub-section angular gyrus is 0.680226 and we observed 22 DNMs. Because of the difference in background mutation rate, we cannot directly compare the number of DNMs between fetal brain enhancers and angular gyrus. Hence, we normalised the observed number of DNMs in angular gyrus enhancers to a background mutation rate of 0.970718 using the following formula.

      (Observed number of DNMs in angular gyrus enhancers x mutation rate of fetal brain enhancers) / mutation rate of angular gyrus enhancers

      (22 x 0.970718) / 0.680226 = 31.395

      Similarly, we normalised the observed number of mutations from all adult brain subsections and human gain enhancers to a background mutation rate of 0.970718 (Table S6) so that we could perform a valid comparison between the observed number of mutations from various enhancer sets.

      In the revised manuscript, we have revised the method section to make it clearer (Page 23, line 23 to page 24, line 19).

      Comment 2.2: Can the authors please explain why they did not used the standard de novo variant enrichment approach outlined in Samocha et al 2014, which is used in similar non-coding de novo studies of ID (e.g. Short et al 2018 Nature)? My concern is that using the Samocha approach, no enrichment would be observed in fetal brain enhancers, given the data presented in supplemental table S6.

      Response 2.2: The Samocha et al 2014 paper provides the statistical framework to evaluate the rates of de novo mutation (DNM) assuming neutral selection. The variants that lead to disease (functional variants) tend to be under negative selection. Thus, the region or a gene that is devoid of functional variants is likely to reflect a region or a gene that is under selective constraint. The functional variants in such regions or genes are likely to cause disease (Samocha et al, 2014, Nature Genetics). This approach was used to identify genes that are intolerant to loss of function mutations (Lek et al, 2016, Nature).

      As we discussed in the manuscript, due to the triplet codon structure it is relatively easy to predict functional consequences of DNMs in protein-coding regions of the genome, thus it becomes easy to distinguish likely functional variants from non-functional variants. Please note that only protein-truncating and damaging missense (potentially functional) coding DNMs show enrichment in NDD and not non-functional DNMs.

      In non-coding regions of the genome, in absence of a codon like structure, it is extremely challenging to distinguish potentially functional variants from non-functional variants. A very small proportion of the DNMs that overlap enhancer regions might be truly functional (under selective pressure) and the majority might be non-functional (neutral). Hence, it is not possible to achieve statistical significance using Samocha et al 2014 framework for enhancer DNMs with a small cohort when the enhancer set contains a mixture of functional (a small fraction) and non-functional (a large fraction) DNMs. An analogy for the protein coding region would be applying Samoch et al 2014 framework to all protein-coding variants including synonymous mutations, which may not show enrichment of DNMs in the disease cohort.

      Given the small sample size and non-availability of tools and techniques to separate functional non-coding variants from non-functional variants, we did not use Samocha et al 2014 framework to show the enrichment of DNMs in fetal brain enhancers. Instead, we asked a simple question, out of fetal and adult brain enhancer sets which one is enriched for DNMs in the ID cohort?

      In the revised manuscript, in the abstract (Page 3, line 8) we changed the sentence to clarify that the enrichment of ID DNMs in fetal brain enhancers was against the adult brain enhancers.

      Comment 2.3: In Supplemental table S6, the normalised expected number of de novo variants across all different enhancer sets within the ID and GoNL samples is the same. Can the authors clarify why this is the case, as presumably these sets contain very different genomic sequences, and therefore one would not expect the same number of DNMs?

      Response 2.3: See the detailed explanation in answer to comment 2.1. As we normalised observed the number of DNMs from various enhancer sets to the background mutation rate of fetal brain enhancers (0.970718), the expected number of DNMs (number of samples X mutation rate, 47x0.970718 = 45.623746) is the same for all enhancer sets.

      Comment 2.4: Instead of using the standard enrichment approach proposed by Samocha et al 2014, the authors compare the rates of de novo variants in ID to those reported in the GoNL study. However, very little information is provided about the de novo variant data from the GoNL. Presumably, the GoNL and the current study used different approaches to sequence samples, call variants, and QC the data. Also, is the coverage across these studies comparable? All these factors will contribute to batch effects, and therefore I am not convinced that the GoNL study is an appropriate control comparison. The authors should provide data to reassure the reader that these samples can be compared. For example, are similar rates of de novo variants found between these samples for variants in null enhancers sets? To clarify, an equivalent analysis in exome sequencing studies would be to show that the rates of synonymous variants are the same across data sets.

      Response 2.4: We would like to point out that we haven’t performed a direct comparison between our ID cohort and GoNL cohort. We are aware that there are technical differences between DNM identification in our cohort and the GoNL cohort. The GoNL genomes were sequenced on Illumina HiSeq 2000 with 13X coverage while ID cohort reported in this study were sequenced on the Illumina HiSeq X10 platform with an average coverage of 37X. Hence, We did not perform a direct comparison between our ID cohort and GoNL cohort.

      We evaluated the enrichment of DNMs in fetal brain-specific enhancers compared to adult brain-specific enhancers independently within ID and GoNL cohorts. We compared the number of DNMs in fetal brain enhancers vs adult brain enhancers within the ID cohort. We observed the significant enrichment of DNMs in fetal brain-specific enhancers as compared to adult brain enhancers in the ID cohort. Next, we asked whether the DNMs from healthy individuals also show enrichment in fetal brain-specific enhancers or whether this enrichment was specific to the ID cohort. To answer this question, we used the GoNL cohort and performed a comparison between fetal brain enhancers and adult brain enhancers within GoNL cohort. We did not find any enrichment in fetal brain enhancers. As analysis is performed independently within each cohort between fatal and adult brain enhancers, hence the technical differences between the two datasets would not have any effect on the results.

      To make it clear, we have changed the text in the revised manuscript (Page 8, lines 1-4). We have also changed a sentence in the abstract from “We found that regulatory DNMs were selectively enriched in fetal brain-specific and human-gained enhancers.” to “We found that regulatory DNMs were selectively enriched in fetal brain-specific and human-gained enhancers as compared to adult brain enhancers.”

      Comment 2.5: The replication analysis of enhancer clusters that are recurrently hit be de novo variants in ID is weak. For enhancer clusters with recurrent de novo variants in their ID cohort, the authors simply report the number of de novo variants observed in these enhancers in the Genomics England cohort, but they do not test whether the observed number in Genomics England is greater than that expected. For their findings to be replicated, they need to show the de novo rate is statistically above expectation.

      Response 2.5: To improve the replication analysis, we estimated the expected number of DNMs in the Genomics England cohort (n=3,169) in CSMD1, OLFM1 and POU3F3 enhancer clusters using the framework defined in Samocha et al 2014 paper and estimated statistical significance using a poison test. We found that the POU3F3 enhancer cluster was significantly enriched for DNMs even after multiple test corrections. We included these findings in the revised manuscript (Page 12, lines 24-27). In addition, we applied Samocha et al framework to CSMD1, OLFM1 and POU3F3 enhancer clusters in our ID cohort as well. We found that all three enhancer clusters were enriched for DNMs after multiple test correction.

      Minor comments:<br /> Comment 2.6.1: The authors state that all coding de novos were validated by Sanger sequencing, but what about the non-coding de novos? Validation of the specific mutations that contribute to the main findings would strengthen the paper.

      Response 2.6.1: The potentially pathogenic coding variants were validated using sanger sequencing by clinicians to report our findings to respective families. However, as non-coding DNMs could not be reported back to families as a diagnosis until the pathogenicity of these DNMs is fully established, clinicians (who have patients' DNA) are reluctant to perform Sanger sequencing to confirm the DNM. However, we have investigated each non-coding variant reported in the manuscript in IGV and their pattern looks similar to the validated coding DNMs, hence we are confident that they are true DNM calls.

      Comment 2.6.2: In the introduction, the line "A family with two affected siblings was analysed for the presence of recessive variants" seems out of place and incomplete, as there is no mention of the results from this analysis.

      Response 2.6.2: Sorry for the error, we have removed this sentence from the manuscript.

      Comment 2.6.3: In the discussion, they write "It is noteworthy that in protein-coding regions of the genome, only protein-truncating variants (PTV), but not other protein-coding mutations, show significant enrichment in neurodevelopmental disorders (11,41)". This is not true. In Kaplanis et al 2020, damaging missense variants are robustly shown to contribute to NDDs (see SM figure 3 for example).

      Response 2.6.3: Thank you very much for pointing out the fact that the damaging missense mutations contribute to the NDD. We have changed the sentence in the revised manuscript and included damaging missense in the sentence (Page 16, lines 21-23).

      Comment 2.6.4: The data availability statement is weak. Many similar studies have deposited sequencing data from NDD cohorts to appropriate repositories.

      Response 2.6.4: We agree with the reviewer's suggestion, however, due to the restrictions of ethical approval, we may not be able to deposit sequence data to public databases even with controlled access.

      Comment 2.6.5: The authors should consider making the code used for their analysis open source, as this would help clarify some of the methodological questions I, and other may, have.

      Response 2.6.5: We have made available code used to calculate the expected number of DNMs in a set of enhancers and cohort size on GitHub ( https://github.com/santoshatanur/expDNM).

      Reviewer #2 (Significance):

      This is in important area of research, as the fraction of ID explained by non-coding variants is unknown. However, the very small sample size, especially when compared with other sequencing studies of NDDs in the literature, unfortunately limit the significance of the advance. Nevertheless, if authors can show that the results reported in the paper are robust, then the findings will be of interest to both researchers and clinicians studying NDDs.

      My area of expertise is in the generation and analysis of sequencing data to study psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders. I have a lot of experience analysing exome sequencing data from proband-parent trios. I do not have experience with CRISPR, so I have not commented on that part of the study.

      Reviewer #3 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity):

      Summary

      In this manuscript, Vas and Boulet et al. presents the potential regulatory role of de novo mutations (DNMs) in intellectual disability (ID). They performed whole-genome sequencing in an ID cohort including 21 ID probands and their healthy parents. To study the regulatory DNMs in ID, they combined 17 ID probands without pathogenic coding DNMs with a previous cohort including 30 exome-negative ID cases. Leveraging their DNM dataset with a variety of epigenomic datasets, they observed ID DNMs were enriched more within fetal brain enhancers than adult brain enhancers. They also detected that the enhancers harboring ID DNMs showed promoter-enhancer interactions for the ID-relevant genes. Moreover, they identified recurrent mutations within enhancer clusters associated with CSMD1, OLFM1, and POU3F3 genes, when combining with larger pre-existing databases of genetic variants. Finally, they found that many ID DNMs were predicted to disrupt binding motifs of TFs, and experimentally validated the regulatory function of some of these loci. They showed the allele-specific activity for an enhancer region including an ID DNM for the SOX8 gene via luciferase assay as an episomal assay. They further showed that the same enhancer region regulates SOX8 expression by performing CRISPRi, and proved the allele-specific impact of the same DNM via also genome editing with CRISPR/Cas9.

      Major

      Comment 3.1: The sample size of the Whole Genome Sequencing conducted in this study is extremely limited, and therefore the conclusions that can be drawn from the study are also extremely limited. The authors combined their data with existing cohorts for a subset of analyses, however, the novelty and utility of the findings from this cohort alone is limited.

      Response 3.1: The fact that our sample size is small has been sufficiently addressed in the manuscript. However, we have applied robust statistical methods and used state of art experimental techniques to support our findings. Even with the smaller sample size, we show that the DNMs in ID patients are enriched in fetal brain enhancers as compared to adult brain enhancers. We identified three enhancer clusters with recurrent mutations and one of them was replicated in a large cohort. Because our sample size was small, we performed extensive experimental validations. We show that nine DNMs, from nine different ID patients, that are located in fetal brain enhancers show allele-specific expression. Furthermore, we show that SOX8 enhancer DNM indeed affects SOX8 expression using CRISPR knock-in. Though our sample size is small, with strong experimental support, we believe our findings are widely applicable.

      Comment 3.2: Multiple testing burden must be considered when conducting enrichment studies in genomic regions using WGS data. Unfortunately, it is not considered here and without this the observed enrichment is not convincing. See for example https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-018-0107-y.

      Response 3.2: In the manuscript, we have presented the outputs of multiple independent analyses where we applied different statistical tests. In any analysis, if more than one hypothesis was tested, we applied multiple test correction. In the manuscript, we clearly mentioned whether the test is significant at a nominal p-value or after multiple test corrections. For example, enrichment analysis for developing cortex and prefrontal cortex cell types. Here we mention that “On the contrary, all four developed human brain cell types showed significant enrichment for ID DNMs compared to GoNL DNMs in promoter regions after correcting for multiple tests.” (Page 11, lines 12-14).

      However, we agree that in the original manuscript we did not apply the multiple test correction for fetal vs adult brain enrichment analysis. In the revised manuscript, we have now applied multiple test corrections for fatal vs adult brain enrichment analysis. To achieve uniformity throughout the manuscript, we used R package p.adjust to estimate the false discovery rate (FDR) after multiple test corrections for all the analyses where more than one hypothesis test was performed.

      • DNM enrichment in fetal vs adult brain enhancers
      • Enrichment of known ID genes in the genes associated with the DNM-containing fetal brain enhancers
      • DNM enrichment analysis for developing brain and developed brain cell types
      • Recurrent DNMs in enhancer clusters

      The gene ontology enrichment and tissue enrichment analysis for genes associated with the DNM-containing enhancers were performed using the web-based tool Enrichr (https://maayanlab.cloud/Enrichr/), which applies Bonferroni correction for all the tests. Similarly, tissue enrichment analysis for transcription factors whose binding sites were disrupted by the DNM was also performed using Enrichr. Hence for both of these analyses, p-values provided by Enrichr were reported in the manuscript.

      The enrichment analysis of genes that are intolerant to loss of function mutations in genes associated with DNM-containing enhancers was a single test so multiple test correction was not applied.

      In the revised manuscript, we have now applied multiple test correction to all the analyses where it was appropriate to apply. In the revised manuscript, we have now mentioned the statistical test used, the p-value obtained and the FDR for all the statistical tests.

      Comment 3.3: The total number of promoter enhancer interactions as shown in Figure 2 is unbelievably high. The number of gene loops previously detected using Hi-C is much lower. This analysis seems to assign every enhancer in the region to the promoter within a TAD, which is much too liberal an analysis and not consistent with number of gene loops detected via Hi-C or eQTL work.

      Response 3.3: As explained in detail in the manuscript to identify enhancer-promoter interactions, we used promoter capture Hi-C data and correlation of H3K27ac signal across 127 tissues/cell types available through a roadmap epigenomic project. On average each enhancer was associated with 1.64 genes and each gene was interacting with 4.83 enhancers. These findings were consistent with previous reports of enhancer-promoter interactions (25). We added this to the revised manuscript (Page 8, lines 25-27)

      The specific genes presented in Figure 2 might have a higher number of enhancers associated with them because of the specific genomic architecture in those regions. For example, the TAD containing the CSMD1 gene is a single gene TAD.

      Comment 3.4: Because the total number of DNMs are few, I would recommend moving genomic annotations to hg38 rather than losing 123 DNMs via liftover to hg19.

      Response 3.4: As we mentioned in the manuscript, we used a large amount of publicly available epigenomic datasets which are mostly available in hg19. To move the analysis to HG38 we need to liftover all the epigenomic datasets to HG38, which is much more complicated than liftover of DNMs to hg19.

      Comment 3.5: The source of the neural progenitors used in the experiments are not described.

      Response 3.5: We have differentiated hESC (H9) to NPCs, methods are now detailed in the manuscript under the heading “NPC culture protocol” (Page 29, lines 22-25).

      Comment 3.6: The non-targeting or control gRNA is not described.

      Response 3.6: Control gRNA is now described in the method (Page 30, line 7).

      Comment 3.7: It's difficult to transfect both neural progenitors and neurons, it would be useful to see images of GFP expression if this is on the plasmid to know the degree of transfection efficiency and give greater confidence in the results presented in Figure 4.

      Response 3.7: We agree it is difficult to transfect these cells, Hence we have transfected NPCs followed by a selection of transfected cells using antibiotics.. (detailed in the manuscript methods section Page 31, lines 6-7)

      Comment 3.8: The specific instances where a one-tailed statistical test was used need to be highlighted.

      Response 3.8: Apologies for the error, we used a two-tailed t-test throughout the manuscript. The method section is corrected accordingly.

      Comment 3.9: At page 11, the authors stated "As enhancer regions of none of the human brain cell types showed significant enrichment for ID DNMs, we concentrated on DNMs overlapping enhancers from the bulk fetal brain for downstream analysis." However, cell-type-specific enhancer enrichment analysis vs fetal brain enhancer enrichment are two different analyses. The authors did not test if the ID DNMs were enriched more in fetal brain enhancers than control DNMs were. They only compared enrichment of ID DNMs and control DNMs fetal vs adult brain enhancers. Hence, this statement was not clearly justified. It would be improved by performing a fisher's exact test to assess if ID DNMs showed more enrichment within fetal bulk brain enhancers than control DNMs did similar to cell-type-specific enrichment analysis.

      Response 3.9: Thank you very much for pointing out this. In the revised manuscript, we have removed the above-mentioned sentence from the manuscript.

      Comment 3.10: At page 13, the authors indicated that "The fetal brain enhancer DNMs from ID probands frequently disturbed putative binding sites of TFs that were predominantly expressed in neuronal cells (P = 0.022; Table S12b). Our results suggest that the enhancer DNMs from ID probands were more likely to affect the binding sites of neuronal transcription factors and could influence the regulation of genes involved in nervous system development through this mechanism." How this conclusion is drawn is unclear. Table S12b includes three cell-types with identical p-values and odd ratios based on a statistical test. How could the authors get identical parameters for all cell-types? Which dataset was used to compare the expression of these transcription factors? Were transcription factors also expressed in non-neuronal cell-types? I would request the authors to clarify the analysis performed here in the methods section, and to compare the expression of TFs in other cell-types in order to conclude as "TFs that were predominantly expressed in neuronal cells". Also, this analysis would be improved by assessing the overlap of DNMs disturbed putative binding sites within cell-type-specific ATAC-seq peaks i.e. if they were enriched more within neuronal ATAC-seq peaks than non-neuronal ATAC-seq peaks.

      Response 3.10: The results presented in the manuscript are the output of the tissue/cell type expression analysis performed using the web-based tool Enrichr (http://amp.pharm.mssm.edu/Enrichr/). In the method section of the original manuscript under the heading “Gene enrichment analysis”, we described that the “Gene ontology enrichment and tissue enrichment analysis were performed using the web-based tool Enricher (http://amp.pharm.mssm.edu/Enrichr/))”.

      To estimate the tissue specificity of the gene expression Enricher uses gene expression data from the ARCHS4 project, which contains processed RNA-seq data from over 100,000 publicly available samples profiled by the two major deep sequencing platforms HiSeq 2000 and HiSeq 2500.

      In supplementary table 12b of the original manuscript, we presented only cell types that showed significant enrichment. However, in the revised manuscript, we have provided a list of all the tissues and cell types tested by Enrichr along with corresponding p-values. Except for the neuronal cell types, none of the tissues and cell types showed statistically significant enrichment.

      Furthermore, to make it clear we separated various gene and tissue enrichment analyses under different headings and provided a detailed explanation in the method section of the revised manuscript. The analysis of tissue specificity of transcription factor expression is now mentioned under the heading “Enrichment of analysis for tissue/cell type expression of transcription factors whose binding site were affected by enhancer DNM” (Page 27, lines 10-17) and described it in the main text as well (Page 9, lines 14-17).

      Comment 3.11: The authors randomly selected DNMs from 11 ID patients that were predicted to alter TFBS affinity for experimental validation in the luciferase assay. Were the allele-specific impacts of DNMs shown in Figure 3 consistent with the predicted impact via motifbreakR? Given that the authors prioritized the regulatory ID DNMs based on motifbreakR results for the experimental validation, I would request the authors to evaluate if the alleles disrupting a TF motif that mainly has activator/repressor function also showed lower/higher luciferase activity. That would help to support the evidence for the regulatory function of other ID DNMs predicted to be TF disruption but which could not be experimentally validated.

      Response 3.11: Thank you very much for the excellent suggestion. We evaluated if the allele disrupting TF motif that mainly has activator/repressor function also showed lower/higher luciferase activity. It is more complex because of nine DNMs that showed allele-specific activity only five disrupt the TF motif and four of them result in the gain of the TF binding site.

      Of the five that disrupt TF binding site, two disrupt the binding site of the activator (SP1 and CREB1) and both show reduced luciferase activity, while two disrupt the binding site of repressor or negative regulator (TCF7L1 and FOXN1) and both show increased luciferase activity. One DNM disrupts the binding site of the histone acetyltransferase (EP300) and shows reduced luciferase activity.

      Of the four DNMs that result in a gain of transcription factor binding sites, two create a binding site for activator (HBP1 and BPTF) and show increased activity in luciferase activity. Of the two gain of TFBS DNMs show reduced activity one creates TFBS for MAFB which can act as both a repressor and activator, while the second creates TFBS for HOXD13 for which we haven’t found any support for the repressive activity. Taken together eight out of nine DNMs show increased or decreased luciferase activity, which matches the known role of TF whose binding site was disrupted or created by DNM.

      In the revised manuscript, we added two additional columns in Table S13 indicating the role of the transcription factor (activator/repressor) and luciferase activity (gain or loss). Furthermore, we included the following text in the manuscript “Furthermore, for the majority of the DNMs (8 out 9) the allele-specific activity was consistent with the predicted effect of the MotifBreakR (Table S13). For example, CSMD1 enhancer DNMs disrupt the binding site of TCF7L1, a transcriptional repressor and luciferase assay shows that the mutant allele results in a gain of enhancer activity.” (Page 14, lines 16-19).

      Comment 3.12: At page 24 in the methods section, the authors defined the control DNMs set as "We downloaded de novo mutations identified in the healthy individuals in genomes of the Netherland (GoNL) study (21) from the GoNL website". Does DNM set from GoNL also include protein-truncating mutations? If it does, are there any de novo mutations that were previously also found in any other neurodevelopmental condition as being pathogenic or likely pathogenic? If it includes both protein-truncating de novo mutations and noncoding DNMs, the two datasets used for the analysis described in Figure 1 would not be appropriately comparable to conclude that regulatory DNMs in ID were enriched in fetal brain enhancers whereas control DNMs enriched in adult brain enhancers. In which enhancer category (fetal or adult) ID DNMs would be enriched if the same analysis is performed by using both protein-truncating and regulatory DNMs? I would request the authors to evaluate the possibility that regulatory DNMs were enriched more in fetal brain enhancers compared to adult brain regardless of disease status, if the GoNL control group includes both protein-truncating and regulatory DNMs. Also, as described in the previous statement, if control DNMs include only regulatory DNMs or both protein-truncating+regulatory DNMs is not clear. This analysis would also be improved by restricting control DNMs into regulatory DNMs.

      Response 3.12: Of 11,020 GoNL DNMs, only six DNMs were protein-truncating. None of the six protein-truncating DNMs were reported to be pathogenic or likely pathogenic in clinvar for any of the neurodevelopmental disorders or any other disease. All 47 ID samples are coding negative means they don’t have pathogenic or likely pathogenic coding DNM (protein truncating or damaging missense). Similarly, none of the GoNL samples has any pathogenic and likely pathogenic DNM. Hence, the comparison between the ID cohort and the GoNL cohort is a valid comparison.

      However, as suggested by the reviewer, we performed multiple analyses. i) We performed enrichment analysis after removing six protein-truncating DNMs from GoNL cohort but the results did not change. ii) We excluded all protein-coding DNMs including synonymous and non-synonymous DNMs from both cohorts (included only non-coding DNMs) but the results did not change.

      The number of DNMs that overlapped the fetal brain enhancer and adult brain enhancer did not change in any comparison. This is because protein-coding regions of the genome and, fetal and adult brain enhancers are mutually exclusive, they don’t overlap. Therefore, the inclusion or exclusion of protein-truncating DNMs in enhancer enrichment analysis did not affect the results.

      Comment 3.13: At page 14, the authors indicated that "In the heterozygous mutant clone, the SOX8 gene showed a significant (P = 0.0301) reduction in expression levels, however, no difference was observed in expression levels of the LFM1 gene (P = 0.8641; Fig. 4d), suggesting that the enhancer specifically regulates the SOX8 gene but not the LFM1 gene." based on the knock-in experiment for DNM. However, they did not show how CRISPRi of the enhancer which is the promoter for LFM1 impacted on LFM1 gene expression as they provided for the SOX8 gene in Figure 4b. I would request the authors to rephrase the statement as "the regulatory impact of DNM within the enhancer is specific for SOX8 but not for LFM1", or provide evidence that LFM1 expression levels did not change after the CRISPRi experiment. Also, if the CRISPRi experiment would not show any change in LFM1 expression, I would also request the authors to interpret what could be potential factors for that a regulatory sequence in a gene promoter would not impact its expression.

      Responce 3.13: As suggested by the reviewer, we have rephrased the sentence to “the regulatory impact of DNM within the enhancer is specific for SOX8 but not for LFM1”. (Page 15, lines 22-23)

      We would like to point out that the DNM-containing enhancer is not located in the promoter region of the LMF1 gene, but it is located downstream of the gene as LMF1 is on the reverse strand. The genes SOX8 (forward strand) and LMF1 (reverse strand) share a promoter region as they are transcribed in the opposite direction. The DNM-containing enhancer that interacts with the promoter region of both SOX8 and LMF1 is located downstream of the LMF1 gene. The region where gRNA was targeted for the CRISPRi experiment was approximately 10.5kb away from the 3’ end of the LMF1 gene.

      Comment 3.14: The authors utilized neuroblastoma cells for luciferase assay, neuronal progenitor cells for CRISPRi, and HEK293T cells for genome editing CRISPR/Cas9 experiments. Given the cell-type-specificity of active regulatory elements, I would request the authors to provide more justification for the utilization of different cell types for each assay. More specifically, LMF1 gene expression did not alter, albeit DNM's position in the gene promoter in Figure 4d. Could it be due to the low expression level of cell-type-specific transcription factors in HEK cells? Showing that expression levels of TFs whose binding motifs were disrupted via DNM at the region are comparable between HEK cells vs neuronal cells would be helpful here.

      Response 3.14: We set out to perform the studies in neuroblastoma cells and validate the findings in NPCs. However, due to the difficulty in performing precise editing of a single nucleotide in neuroblastoma cells/NPCs, we have used HEK293T cells (Page 15, lines 12-14).

      As described in the manuscript and the answer to the previous question, the DNM-containing enhancer is not located in the promoter region of the LMF1 gene (promoter is near the SOX8 gene), but it is located downstream of the gene as LMF1 is in the reverse strand of the genome. The region where gRNA was targeted for the CRISPRi experiment was approximately 10.5kb away from the 3’ end of the LMF1 gene, not in the promoter region of the LMF1 gene.

      Comment 3.15: Citation of many datasets are missing throughout the text including the (1) expression data in prefrontal cortex in the sentence at page 9 ".. but also predominantly expressed in the prefrontal cortex", (2) again expression data from neuronal datasets in the sentence at page 13 "The fetal brain enhancer DNMs from ID probands frequently disturbed putative binding sites of TFs that were predominantly expressed in neuronal cells", (3) NPCs in the sentence at page 14 "To investigate whether the putative enhancer of the SOX8/LMF1 gene indeed regulates the expression of the target genes, we performed CRISPR interference (CRISPRi), by guideRNA mediated recruitment of dCas9 fused with the four copies of sin3 interacting domain (SID4x) in the neuronal progenitor cells (NPCs).", and (4) H3K27ac and H3K4me1 datasets used in Figure 4e and described at page 14 in the sentence "Hence, we investigated H3K4me1 and H3K27ac levels at DNM containing SOX8 enhancer.". Adding citations of all external datasets utilized in the paper would be helpful for the reproducibility of the analyses and experiments.

      Response 3.15: In the revised manuscript, we have included citations for datasets used in the analysis.

      Analysis (1) and (2) were performed using the web-based tool Enrichr (https://maayanlab.cloud/Enrichr/). To perform tissue-specific expression analysis Enrichr uses the gene expression data from the ARCHS4 project (https://maayanlab.cloud/archs4/). We have mentioned this both in the text and the methods section of the revised manuscript.

      (3) source of NPC is now mentioned in the methods section (Page 29, lines 22-25).

      (4) The H3K4me1 and H3K27ac levels at DNM containing enhancers were measured using ChIP-qPCR in this study hence citation was not provided (Page 15, line 27 to page 16, line 1).

      Comment 3.16: At page 10, the authors indicated that "We did not find enrichment for ID DNMs in open chromatin regions (ATAC-seq peaks) for any of the developing brain cell types" and on page 11, they stated, "On the contrary, all four developed human brain cell types showed significant enrichment for ID DNMs compared to GoNL DNMs in promoter regions after correcting for multiple tests". Given that ID DNMs were more enriched in fetal brain enhancers than adult brain enhancers in Figure 1, it is important to discuss why ID DNMs were enriched within developed brain cell-type regulatory elements but not in developing brain cell-type specific regulatory elements. I would request the authors to clarify this discrepancy. Could the distance to the gene be a factor in this discrepancy? How do cell-type-specific enrichment results change if ATAC-seq peaks from developing human cortex would be also restricted by chromatin accessibility regions within gene promoters (e.g. within +/- 2kb from TSS)? If ID DNMs within promoter regions were enriched within at least one of the cell-type-specific regulatory elements in both developing and adult brains, re-evaluating the analysis performed in Figure 1 by considering the distance of DNMs to genes would be critical to conclude temporal-specific enrichment of ID DNMs.

      Response 3.16: ATAC-seq data from the developing brain was obtained from Song et al (2020, Nature) paper. ATAC-seq peaks open chromatin regions which include the entire regulatory spectrum including active and inactive regulatory regions, therefore open chromatin regions may not show enrichment for DNMs.

      To identify open chromatin regions that interact with the promoters that are active in specific cell types Song et al (2020, Nature) performed histone 3 lysine 4 trimethylation (H3K4me3) proximity ligation-assisted chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing (PLAC-seq). Using cell type-specific chromatin interaction data, we investigated whether interacting open chromatin regions are enriched for ID DNMs as compared to GoNL DNMs. We found that interacting chromatin regions from IPCs were enriched for ID DNMs suggesting that DNMs affecting highly interacting regulatory regions might be functional.

      Furthermore, as suggested by the reviewer we performed an enrichment analysis by restricting ATAC-seq peaks to +/-2kb region around the TSS of protein-coding genes. We found that ID DNMs were enriched in promoter regions of all four developing brain cell types. We have included this result in the revised manuscript (page 11, lines 5-8).

      We then investigated if any of the 83 DNMs that overlapped with the fetal brain-specific enhancers or human gain enhancers were located within +/-2kb of the TSS of protein-coding gene. We found that only 4 DNMs were located within the 2kb region around TSS, suggesting that the enrichment observed fetal brain enhancers was not due to DNMs located in promoter regions.

      Minor<br /> Comment 3.17.1: In general, the study could benefit from more figures rather than providing results with tables to follow and understand them, especially for Table S6 and Table S11.

      Response 3.17.1: The data from Table S6 is already represented in Figure 1 of the manuscript.

      Comment 3.17.2: At figure 2, the colors of the arcs do not match the colors indicated in the label.

      Response 3.17.2: We have changed the arc colours in the Figure 2 legends to reflect the real colours of the arc from “pink” to “magenta” and “green” to “dark green”.

      Comment 3.17.3: At tables 11a and 11c, the column names indicated in the E and F columns are the same, it would be good to distinguish them.

      Response 3.17.3: Thank you very much for pointing out the error. In table 11a and 11c of the revised manuscript, we have changed the column names of the E and F columns.

      Comment 3.17.4: At page 10, the authors indicated that "The IPCs give rise to most neurons (32) hence DMNs in highly connected active promoters and enhancers from IPCs might have a profound impact on neurogenesis." This sentence is not clear.

      Response 3.17.4: We have rephrased the sentence to make it clearer “suggesting that DNMs affecting highly interacting regulatory regions of IPCs might be functional” (Page 11, lines 3-4).

      Comment 3.17.5: Radical glia -> radial glia

      Response 3.17.5: We have changed it throughout the manuscript

      Comment 3.17.6: Describe background gene lists used for all hypergeometric/fisher's exact tests.

      Response 3.17.6: We have already mentioned the background gene list used for all hypergeometric/fisher's exact tests performed in the respective supplemental tables. For the analysis performed using the web-based tool Enrichr (https://maayanlab.cloud/Enrichr/), in the method section of the revised manuscript, we have mentioned the background gene set used by Enrichr to perform tissue enrichment analysis.

      Comment 3.17.7: In Figure 4a, it would be useful to label the de novo mutation, otherwise it's not clear why a specific region was highlighted. Also, to highlight where the gRNA was targeted for the CRISPRi experiment.

      Response 3.17.7: In Figure 4a, we have labelled the de novo mutation in the revised manuscript. We have added panel 4b to highlight the region where gRNA was targeted for the CRISPRi experiment.

      Reviewer #3 (Significance):

      Overall this study attempted to identify and validate novel non-coding variants associated with ID. However, given limitations in sample size, statistical testing, and experimental design, as described above, many of these conclusions are limited.

    2. Note: This preprint has been reviewed by subject experts for Review Commons. Content has not been altered except for formatting.

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      Referee #3

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary

      In this manuscript, Vas and Boulet et al. presents the potential regulatory role of de novo mutations (DNMs) in intellectual disability (ID). They performed whole-genome sequencing in an ID cohort including 21 ID probands and their healthy parents. To study the regulatory DNMs in ID, they combined 17 ID probands without pathogenic coding DNMs with a previous cohort including 30 exome-negative ID cases. Leveraging their DNM dataset with a variety of epigenomic datasets, they observed ID DNMs were enriched more within fetal brain enhancers than adult brain enhancers. They also detected that the enhancers harboring ID DNMs showed promoter-enhancer interactions for the ID-relevant genes. Moreover, they identified recurrent mutations within enhancer clusters associated with CSMD1, OLFM1, and POU3F3 genes, when combining with larger pre-existing databases of genetic variants. Finally, they found that many ID DNMs were predicted to disrupt binding motifs of TFs, and experimentally validated the regulatory function of some of these loci. They showed the allele-specific activity for an enhancer region including an ID DNM for the SOX8 gene via luciferase assay as an episomal assay. They further showed that the same enhancer region regulates SOX8 expression by performing CRISPRi, and proved the allele-specific impact of the same DNM via also genome editing with CRISPR/Cas9.

      Major

      • The sample size of the Whole Genome Sequencing conducted in this study is extremely limited, and therefore the conclusions that can be drawn from the study are also extremely limited. The authors combined their data with existing cohorts for a subset of analyses, however the novelty and utility of the findings from this cohort alone is limited.
      • Multiple testing burden must be considered when conducting enrichment studies in genomic regions using WGS data. Unfortunately, it is not considered here and without this the observed enrichment is not convincing. See for example https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-018-0107-y.
      • The total number of promoter enhancer interactions as shown in Figure 2 is unbelievably high. The number of gene loops previously detected using Hi-C is much lower. This analysis seems to assign every enhancer in the region to the promoter within a TAD, which is much too liberal an analysis and not consistent with number of gene loops detected via Hi-C or eQTL work.
      • Because the total number of DNMs are few, I would recommend moving genomic annotations to hg38 rather than losing 123 DNMs via liftover to hg19.
      • The source of the neural progenitors used in the experiments are not described.
      • The non-targeting or control gRNA is not described.
      • It's difficult to transfect both neural progenitors and neurons, it would be useful to see images of GFP expression if this is on the plasmid to know the degree of transfection efficiency and give greater confidence in the results presented in Figure 4.
      • The specific instances where a one-tailed statistical test were used need to be highlighted.
      • At page 11, the authors stated "As enhancer regions of none of the human brain cell types showed significant enrichment for ID DNMs, we concentrated on DNMs overlapping enhancers from the bulk fetal brain for downstream analysis." However, cell-type-specific enhancer enrichment analysis vs fetal brain enhancer enrichment are two different analyses. The authors did not test if the ID DNMs were enriched more in fetal brain enhancers than control DNMs were. They only compared enrichment of ID DNMs and control DNMs fetal vs adult brain enhancers. Hence, this statement was not clearly justified. It would be improved by performing a fisher's exact test to assess if ID DNMs showed more enrichment within fetal bulk brain enhancers than control DNMs did similar to cell-type-specific enrichment analysis.
      • At page 13, the authors indicated that "The fetal brain enhancer DNMs from ID probands frequently disturbed putative binding sites of TFs that were predominantly expressed in neuronal cells (P = 0.022; Table S12b). Our results suggest that the enhancer DNMs from ID probands were more likely to affect the binding sites of neuronal transcription factors and could influence the regulation of genes involved in nervous system development through this mechanism." How this conclusion is drawn is unclear. Table S12b includes three cell-types with identical p-values and odd ratios based on a statistical test. How could the authors get identical parameters for all cell-types? Which dataset was used to compare the expression of these transcription factors? Were transcription factors also expressed in non-neuronal cell-types? I would request the authors to clarify the analysis performed here in the methods section, and to compare the expression of TFs in other cell-types in order to conclude as "TFs that were predominantly expressed in neuronal cells". Also, this analysis would be improved by assessing the overlap of DNMs disturbed putative binding sites within cell-type-specific ATAC-seq peaks i.e. if they were enriched more within neuronal ATAC-seq peaks than non-neuronal ATAC-seq peaks.
      • The authors randomly selected DNMs from 11 ID patients that were predicted to alter TFBS affinity for experimental validation in the luciferase assay. Were the allele-specific impacts of DNMs shown in Figure 3 consistent with the predicted impact via motifbreakR? Given that the authors prioritized the regulatory ID DNMs based on motifbreakR results for the experimental validation, I would request the authors to evaluate if the alleles disrupting a TF motif that mainly has activator/repressor function also showed lower/higher luciferase activity. That would help to support the evidence for the regulatory function of other ID DNMs predicted to be TF disruption but which could not be experimentally validated.
      • At page 24 in the methods section, the authors defined the control DNMs set as "We downloaded de novo mutations identified in the healthy individuals in genomes of the<br /> Netherland (GoNL) study (21) from the GoNL website". Does DNM set from GoNL also include protein-truncating mutations? If it does, are there any de novo mutations that were previously also found in any other neurodevelopmental condition as being pathogenic or likely pathogenic? If it includes both protein-truncating de novo mutations and noncoding DNMs, the two datasets used for the analysis described in Figure 1 would not be appropriately comparable to conclude that regulatory DNMs in ID were enriched in fetal brain enhancers whereas control DNMs enriched in adult brain enhancers. In which enhancer category (fetal or adult) ID DNMs would be enriched if the same analysis is performed by using both protein-truncating and regulatory DNMs? I would request the authors to evaluate the possibility that regulatory DNMs were enriched more in fetal brain enhancers compared to adult brain regardless of disease status, if the GoNL control group includes both protein-truncating and regulatory DNMs. Also, as described in the previous statement, if control DNMs include only regulatory DNMs or both protein-truncating+regulatory DNMs is not clear. This analysis would also be improved by restricting control DNMs into regulatory DNMs.
      • At page 14, the authors indicated that "In the heterozygous mutant clone, the SOX8 gene showed a significant (P = 0.0301) reduction in expression levels, however, no difference was observed in expression levels of the LFM1 gene (P = 0.8641; Fig. 4d), suggesting that the enhancer specifically regulates the SOX8 gene but not the LFM1 gene." based on the knock-in experiment for DNM. However, they did not show how CRISPRi of the enhancer which is the promoter for LFM1 impacted on LFM1 gene expression as they provided for the SOX8 gene in Figure 4b. I would request the authors to rephrase the statement as "the regulatory impact of DNM within the enhancer is specific for SOX8 but not for LFM1", or provide evidence that LFM1 expression levels did not change after the CRISPRi experiment. Also, if the CRISPRi experiment would not show any change in LFM1 expression, I would also request the authors to interpret what could be potential factors for that a regulatory sequence in a gene promoter would not impact its expression.
      • The authors utilized neuroblastoma cells for luciferase assay, neuronal progenitor cells for CRISPRi, and HEK293T cells for genome editing CRISPR/Cas9 experiments. Given the cell-type-specificity of active regulatory elements, I would request the authors to provide more justification for the utilization of different cell types for each assay. More specifically, LMF1 gene expression did not alter, albeit DNM's position in the gene promoter in Figure 4d. Could it be due to the low expression level of cell-type-specific transcription factors in HEK cells? Showing that expression levels of TFs whose binding motifs were disrupted via DNM at the region are comparable between HEK cells vs neuronal cells would be helpful here.
      • Citation of many datasets are missing throughout the text including the (1) expression data in prefrontal cortex in the sentence at page 9 ".. but also predominantly expressed in the prefrontal cortex", (2) again expression data from neuronal datasets in the sentence at page 13 "The fetal brain enhancer DNMs from ID probands frequently disturbed putative binding sites of TFs that were predominantly expressed in neuronal cells", (3) NPCs in the sentence at page 14 "To investigate whether the putative enhancer of the SOX8/LMF1 gene indeed regulates the expression of the target genes, we performed CRISPR interference (CRISPRi), by guideRNA mediated recruitment of dCas9 fused with the four copies of sin3 interacting domain (SID4x) in the neuronal progenitor cells (NPCs).", and (4) H3K27ac and H3K4me1 datasets used in Figure 4e and described at page 14 in the sentence "Hence, we investigated H3K4me1 and H3K27ac levels at DNM containing SOX8 enhancer.". Adding citations of all external datasets utilized in the paper would be helpful for the reproducibility of the analyses and experiments.
      • At page 10, the authors indicated that "We did not find enrichment for ID DNMs in open chromatin regions (ATAC-seq peaks) for any of the developing brain cell types" and on page 11, they stated, "On the contrary, all four developed human brain cell types showed significant enrichment for ID DNMs compared to GoNL DNMs in promoter regions after correcting for multiple tests". Given that ID DNMs were more enriched in fetal brain enhancers than adult brain enhancers in Figure 1, it is important to discuss why ID DNMs were enriched within developed brain cell-type regulatory elements but not in developing brain cell-type specific regulatory elements. I would request the authors to clarify this discrepancy. Could the distance to the gene be a factor in this discrepancy? How do cell-type-specific enrichment results change if ATAC-seq peaks from developing human cortex would be also restricted by chromatin accessibility regions within gene promoters (e.g. within +/- 2kb from TSS)? If ID DNMs within promoter regions were enriched within at least one of the cell-type-specific regulatory elements in both developing and adult brains, re-evaluating the analysis performed in Figure 1 by considering the distance of DNMs to genes would be critical to conclude temporal-specific enrichment of ID DNMs.

      Minor

      • In general, the study could benefit from more figures rather than providing results with tables to follow and understand them, especially for Table S6 and Table S11.
      • At figure 2, the colors of the arcs do not match the colors indicated in the label.
      • At tables 11a and 11c, the column names indicated in the E and F columns are the same, it would be good to distinguish them.
      • At page 10, the authors indicated that "The IPCs give rise to most neurons (32) hence DMNs in highly connected active promoters and enhancers from IPCs might have a profound impact on neurogenesis." This sentence is not clear.
      • Radical glia -> radial glia
      • Describe background gene lists used for all hypergeometric/fisher's exact tests.
      • In Figure 4a, it would be useful to label the de novo mutation, otherwise it's not clear why a specific region was highlighted. Also to highlight where the gRNA was targeted for the CRISPRi experiment.

      Referees cross-commenting

      I agree with the other reviewers' comments. I just have one specific comment: Reviewer 1 suggested that RNA-seq would be more accurate than gene expression; however, I feel that this assay is not necessary and may be quite expensive for the targeted gene expression differences measured here.

      Significance

      Overall this study attempted to identify and validate novel non-coding variants associated with ID. However, given limitations in sample size, statistical testing, and experimental design, as described above, many of these conclusions are limited.

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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      The manuscript by De Vas et al describes an investigation of the contribution of non-coding de novo variants to intellectual disability (ID). The authors perform whole genome sequencing (WGS) of 21 ID probands and both parents, and combine these data with WGS from 30 trios previously sequenced. The authors use publicly available data from the Roadmap Epigenomics project to identify sets of enhancers hypothesised to have a role in ID, such fetal brain specific enhances and enhancers associated with known ID-associated genes. These enhancer sets are then tested for enrichment of non-coding de novo variants ID, using publicly available de novo variant data from the Genome of Netherlands (GoNL) project as a control comparison. The authors report that de novo variants in ID are significantly enriched within fetal brain-specific and human-gained enhancers. This is perhaps the main finding of the study. The authors also identify recurrent de novo variants in ID within clusters of enhancers that regulate the genes CSMD1, OLDM1 and POU3F3 in ID. A number of functional experiments are performed to provide further insights in the mechanisms by which de novo variants impact the expression of putative target genes; for example, data is provide that show de novo variants observed in ID within a SOX8 enhancer leads to reduced expression of the SOX8 gene. In conclusion, the authors claim that their data support de novo variants in fetal brain enhancers as contributing to the aetiology of ID.

      Major comments.

      The study uses leading edge genomic technologies to generate WGS in a new ID sample, which is used to investigate the role of non-coding variants to ID aetiology. The manuscript is in general very well written. However, a weakness of the study is a very small sample size, which should result in low statistical power. Despite this power consideration, the authors report very strong P values for their main findings. My main concern with the study is that the methodology used to evaluate enrichment of de novo variants within specific sets of enhancers is unclear, and therefore as it currently stands, I am unable to be confident in the findings. I am also concerned about whether data from the Genome of the Netherlands project is a suitable control comparison, given technical differences that are likely to exist between this and the ID data set. I further explain these methodological concerns below:

      1. When testing for enrichment of de novo variants, the most commonly used approach in the field involves testing whether the observed number of de novo variants in a given genomic region is greater than the number expected by chance, using a Poisson test. Here, the expected number of de novo variants is derived from trinucleotide mutation rates. This method was first proposed by Samocha et al 2014. The current authors use trinucleotide mutation rates to estimate the expected number of de novos among enhancer sets, and cite the Samocha paper, but my understanding is that they do not use a Poisson test to evaluate enrichment. Instead, they use the expected number of mutations among the enhancer sets to normalise the observed number of de novo variants, but it is not clear to me why this is performed, and also what data and statistical test is actually being used to evaluate de novo variant enrichment? I can guess at what they have done, but the methods section outlining this test should be more clearly explained.
      2. Can the authors please explain why they did not used the standard de novo variant enrichment approach outlined in Samocha et al 2014, which is used in similar non-coding de novo studies of ID (e.g. Short et al 2018 Nature)? My concern is that using the Samocha approach, no enrichment would be observed in fetal brain enhancers, given the data presented in supplemental table S6.
      3. In Supplemental table S6, the normalised expected number of de novo variants across all different enhancer sets within the ID and GoNL samples is the same. Can the authors clarify why this is the case, as presumably these sets contain very different genomic sequences, and therefore one would not expect the same number of DNMs?
      4. Instead of using the standard enrichment approach proposed by Samocha et al 2014, the authors compare the rates of de novo variants in ID to those reported in the GoNL study. However, very little information is provided about the de novo variant data from the GoNL. Presumably, the GoNL and the current study used different approaches to sequence samples, call variants, and QC the data. Also, is the coverage across these studies comparable? All these factors will contribute to batch effects, and therefore I am not convinced that the GoNL study is an appropriate control comparison. The authors should provide data to reassure the reader that these samples can be compared. For example, are similar rates of de novo variants found between these samples for variants in null enhancers sets? To clarify, an equivalent analysis in exome sequencing studies would be to show that the rates of synonymous variants are the same across data sets.
      5. The replication analysis of enhancer clusters that are recurrently hit be de novo variants in ID is weak. For enhancer clusters with recurrent de novo variants in their ID cohort, the authors simply report the number of de novo variants observed in these enhancers in the Genomics England cohort, but they do not test whether the observed number in Genomics England is greater than that expected. For their findings to be replicated, they need to show the de novo rate is statistically above expectation.

      Minor comments:

      1. The authors state that all coding de novos were validated by Sanger sequencing, but what about the non-coding de novos? Validation of the specific mutations that contribute to the main findings would strengthen the paper.
      2. In the introduction, the line "A family with two affected siblings was analysed for the presence of recessive variants" seems out of place and incomplete, as there is no mention of the results from this analysis.
      3. In the discussion, they write "It is noteworthy that in protein-coding regions of the genome, only protein-truncating variants (PTV), but not other protein-coding mutations, show significant enrichment in neurodevelopmental disorders (11,41)". This is not true. In Kaplanis et al 2020, damaging missense variants are robustly shown to contribute to NDDs (see SM figure 3 for example).
      4. The data availability statement is weak. Many similar studies have deposited sequencing data from NDD cohorts to appropriate repositories.
      5. The authors should consider making the code used for their analysis open source, as this would help clarify some of the methodological questions I, and other may, have.

      Referees cross-commenting

      I agree with the other reviews.

      Significance

      This is in important area of research, as the fraction of ID explained by non-coding variants is unknown. However, the very small sample size, especially when compared with other sequencing studies of NDDs in the literature, unfortunately limit the significance of the advance. Nevertheless, if authors can show that the results reported in the paper are robust, then the findings will be of interest to both researchers and clinicians studying NDDs.

      My area of expertise is in the generation and analysis of sequencing data to study psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders. I have a lot of experience analysing exome sequencing data from proband-parent trios. I do not have experience with CRISPR, so I have not commented on that part of the study.

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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Figure 4. The figure legend and sub-figures are inconsistent. They do not match.

      Figure 4. For the Sanger sequencing trace of the edited HEK293 cells, why there are noise peak?

      How many single cell clones were chosen for further analyses after CRISPR genome editing? The authors should do single cell filtering by Flow Cytometer or others.

      The authors conducted RT-qPCR to quantify mRNA expression, RNA-Sequencing should be more accurate.

      The discussion is too long, please shorten.

      Referees cross-commenting

      I agree with the other reviewers' comments.

      Significance

      This study investigates the genetic and molecular mechanisms of intellectual disability (ID) by integrating whole genome sequencing and follow up functional explorations. The results provide novel insights into genetic aetiology of ID.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      Summary of changes

      We thank all three reviewers for their constructive feedback on our manuscript. We have now perfomed extensive experiments, analyses, and rewriting of our manuscript to address all their concerns. We believe that these changes significantly improve the rigor of our conclusions and the clarity of our discussion. We highlight below key experiments, analyses, and re-writing in the revised manuscript, which is followed by a detailed point-by-point response. 1) We have now performed experiments using alternative uORF donor sequences to demonstrate the robustness of uORF repression to changes in uORF length.

      2) By mutating out near-cognate start codons within uORF2, we have now demonstrated that near-cognate start codon initiation within uORF2 does not impact repression.

      3) To quantify the dynamic range of our dual luciferase assay, we have now mutated out the NLuc start codon. We find that repressive uORF2 constructs have expression levels that are still > 20-fold above the no-startcodon control values.

      4) We have now analyzed ribosome profiling coverage on uORFs (supplementary figure 5), and we show that several uORFs with known elongation stalls lack evidence of 40S and 80S subunit queueing 5′ to stalls, consistent with our collision-induced ribosome dissociation model.

      5) We have now provided detailed discussion of footprint length choice in our modeling and the role of codon choice in our experiments.

      6) We have now added a new main figure that provides a graphical representation of reactions considered in our kinetic modeling. This figure will make our modeling assumptions more transparent and accessible to readers with less computational expertise.

      Reviewer #1:

      Summary

      Bottorff et al test several models of uORF-mediated regulation of main ORF translation using the uORF2 of CMV UL4 gene, a system that has been previously experimentally characterized by the authors. They first train a computational model to recapitulate the observed experimental effects of mutations in uORF2, and then use the model to infer which uORF parameters may confer buffering against reduced ribosome loading that typically occurs upon biological perturbation. The authors then find that: i) the uORF2 confers buffering, ii) the uORF2 mechanism adjusts to computational predictions for the collision-mediated 40S dissociation model of uORF-mediated regulation. Significance

      This manuscript represents an interesting effort to distinguish mechanisms of uORF-mediated regulation based on mathematical modeling, and might be useful for the translation community. My expertise: Regulation of translation.

      We thank Reviewer 1 for a succinct summary of our main conclusions and highlighting the significance of our work to the translation community.

      Major comments 1) Figure 4 (Figure 5 in revised version): Which is the dynamic range of the WT vs the no-stall construct? In the WT construct, main ORF translation is already quite repressed, and detecting further repression may be more difficult than in the no-stall construct. In other words, the differences that authors are detecting between the WT and no-stall constructs might be due to a potential lower dynamic range of the WT construct

      To measure the dynamic range of our reporter assay, we have now mutated the start codon of the NLuc reporter ORF. We reasoned that this construct provides a lower bound on measurable NLuc signal. The resulting noNLuc-start-codon reporter expression was at least 20-fold lower than WT construct (Fig. S1A). Importantly, we also see that the raw NLuc signal of the WT construct is at least 20-fold over the background (Fig. S1B). Thus, the differential response of WT and no-stall constructs is not simply due to lower dynamic range of the WT construct.

      2) The authors conclude that uORF2 follows the collision-mediated 40S dissociation model, based on fitness of their experimental results with predictions from their mathematical modeling regarding distance between uORF2 initiation codon and the stalling site. But can the authors actually directly prove that there are no 40S subunits accumulating behind the stalled 40S using Ribo-Seq or TCP-Seq?

      We have now examined existing 80S Ribo-seq and 40S TCP-seq datasets to determine whether queued 40S or 80S ribosomes can be detected at known stall sites. Stern-Ginossar et al. (2012) performed 80S Ribo-seq during hCMV infection. In this dataset, while the stall at the UL4 termination codon has a very high ribosome density, few elongating ribosomes are seen queued behind the stalled 80S, consistent with an absence of 80S ribosome queuing (Fig. RR1). By contrast, another well-studied elongation stall in the Xbp1 mRNA shows ~30 nt periodic peaks in ribosome density indicative of ribosome queues (Fig. RR2). An important caveat is that queued ribosomes could be systematically underrepresented in standard Ribo-seq datasets due to incomplete nuclease digestion (Darnell et al., 2018; Subramaniam et al., 2014; Wolin and Walter, 1988).

      Since there is no 40S TCP-Seq dataset during hCMV infection, we examined other known stalls on human mRNAs (Fig. RR3 below; Fig. S5 in our manuscript). We examine small ribosomal subunit profiling data from human uORFs with conserved amino acid-dependent elongating ribosome stalls (Figure S5A). Ribosome density read counts are low across all of these uORFs, showing no evidence of ribosome queuing. Subtle queues might not be observed given these low read counts from insufficient capture of small ribosomal subunits. Nevertheless, we do not observe any evidence of queueing upstream to elongating ribosome stalls in this data. We note these observations in our Discussion section as follows (lines 688-712): “Although our data from UL4 uORF2 does not support the queuing-mediated enhanced repression model (Fig. 1C) (Ivanov et al., 2018), this model might describe translational dynamics on other mRNAs. Translation from near-cognate start codons is resistant to cycloheximide, perhaps due to queuing-mediated enhanced initiation, but sensitive to reductions in ribosome loading (Kearse et al., 2019). Loss of eIF5A, a factor that helps paused elongating ribosomes continue elongation, increases 5′ UTR translation in 10% of studied genes in human cells, augmented by downstream in-frame pause sites within 67 codons, perhaps also through queuing-mediated enhanced initiation (Manjunath et al., 2019). There is also evidence of queuing-enhanced uORF initiation in the 23 nt long Neurospora crassa arginine attenuator peptide (Gaba et al., 2020) as well as in transcripts with secondary structure near and 3′ to start codons (Kozak, 1989). Additional sequence elements in the mRNA might determine whether scanning ribosome collisions result in queuing or dissociation. Small subunit profiling data (Wagner et al., 2020) from human uORFs that have conserved amino acid-dependent elongating ribosome stalls do not show evidence of scanning ribosome queues (Fig. S5A), consistent with the collision-mediated 40S-dissociation model. Subtle queues might not be observed given these low read counts from insufficient capture of small ribosomal subunits.”

      3) Experimental data in Figures 2, 4 and 5 include 3 technical replicates. Sound conclusions typically require biological replicates. Further, the number of replicates in Figure 6 has not been indicated.

      As suggested by the reviewer, we have now included biological replicates for all luciferase assays [Figures 2, 5, 6, and 7 that were previously 2, 4, 5, and 6] that were technical replicates in the previous version. This replication does not alter any of our conclusions. We have now included the number of biological replicates for Figure 7 (former Figure 6).

      Minor comments 1) Figure 4 (Figure 5 in revised version): It is strange that a PEST sequence had to be introduced in the construct of part B in order to observe reliable differences, but not in constructs of parts A and C. Can the authors explain?

      We introduced the PEST sequence for part B because we wanted to measure the reporter response to treatment with a drug that reduces translation initiation. The PEST sequence increases the turnover rate of the reporter protein. Without the PEST sequence, the luminescence signal will be dominated by the reporter expression before the drug was added. However, in parts A and C, initiation rate was altered through genetic mutations and measuring their expression under basal conditions does not require a PEST sequence. Except in situations where a quick dynamic response needs to be measured such as in the drug treatment in part B, reporters without PEST sequences are simpler to interpret due to the absence of proteasome-mediated degradation and higher overall signal.

      2) Figure 6 (Figure 7 in revised version): Unfortunately, the authors find no other human uORFs with terminal diproline motifs that are so essential for main ORF repression as uORF2. In this light, can the authors comment further on the usefulness of their findings for human genes? Have the authors searched for viral RNAs with similar features? Please, notice that the gene PPP1R37 has not been mentioned in the main text.

      The UL4 and human uORFs differ in their sequence determinants of translational repression. UL4 uORF2 represses translation entirely through nascent peptide-mediated stalling. While the terminal diproline motif in UL4 uORF2 is necessary for main ORF repression, it is not sufficient. A number of other residues in the UL4 uORF2 peptide play a critical role in repression (Cao and Geballe, 1996; Matheisl et al., 2015). Thus, it is not surprising that human uORFs that we identified based solely on the presence of terminal diproline motifs confer only modest decrease in repression upon mutating the terminal proline. The human uORFs containing these terminal diprolines may partially repress translation via nascent peptide effects, but the majority of the repression likely arises from siphoning of scanning ribosomes from the main ORF (Fig. 1A in our manuscript) and inefficient termination following translation of consecutive prolines (Cao and Geballe, 1996; Cao and Geballe, 1998; Janzen et al., 2002; Matheisl et al., 2015). Our current understanding of features in nascent peptide that mediate translational repression (Wilson et al., 2016) is insufficient to bioinformatically identify elongation-stall containing uORFs in human or viral genomes, so we simply looked for terminal diprolines. Despite this limitiation, we note that the modeling approaches and experimental perturbations developed in our work can be applied to study ribosome kinetics on any repressive uORF, independent of the mRNA or peptide sequence underlying the repression. As suggested by Reviewer 1, we have now included all the studied uORFs in the main text.

      Reviewer #2:

      Summary

      In this paper, the authors are exploring the uORF regulatory mechanism. They first discussed five general models how uORFs might work to repress and buffering main ORF translation, then they mainly focus on the UL4 uORF2 for the potential mechanism. They use both computer modeling and experimental validation with reporter assay in 293t cell line. Based on their model, and few experimental results when they change the translation initiation rate and/or length of dORF, they propose it may work through 40S dissociation model, since the buffering effect is not uORF length sensitive. Significance

      It is an interesting area, using modeling with experiment validation to understand uORF regulation mechanism, the kinetics and interplay between different translation steps, it will help us to understand uORF buffering in stress conditions. Also bring modeling method with reporter validation to the translation field, will provide clues to the molecular mechanism study, especially in complex situation.

      We thank Reviewer 2 for a comprehensive summary of our work and noting the uniqueness and usefulness of our experiment-integrated modeling approach to the translation field.

      Major comments • Are the key conclusions convincing? The modeling for different mechanisms is insightful, but some modeling parameters and experimental validation are not conclusive and validation of few of them can enforce the conclusions.

      We have now performed key validation experiments suggested by Reviewer 2, notably: 1. mutating out of nearcognate start codons in the UL4 uORF2 coding sequence and 2. increasing UL4 uORF2 length using two unrelated protein coding sequences. Please see responses to specific comments below for further details.

      • Should the authors qualify some of their claims as preliminary or speculative, or remove them altogether? Yes, the part about queuing and length sensitive is not convincing to me, it should be modified and reduce the statement strength.

      We agree about reducing the statement strength and have altered our statements as suggested by the reviewer. Specifically, we have now expanded the rationale for the choice of footprint lengths of 40S subunits. Please see responses to specific comments below for further details.

      • Would additional experiments be essential to support the claims of the paper? Request additional experiments only where necessary for the paper as it is, and do not ask authors to open new lines of experimentation. Yes, please see the specific concerns • Are the suggested experiments realistic in terms of time and resources? It would help if you could add an estimated cost and time investment for substantial experiments. They will need to re-think about the modeling, and validation in Figure 5, there are validation experiments that can be done in weeks and in a cost-efficient manner that can enforce the conclusions.

      We have performed the experiments suggested by the reviewer. See responses below.

      • Are the data and the methods presented in such a way that they can be reproduced? Most of them are good • Are the experiments adequately replicated and statistical analysis adequate? Yes Specific concerns 1) It is a bit confusing to me in Figure 2C, the reporter assays, that non-start codon reporter and non-stall reporter has same expression level. In theory, the non-stall reporter still has uORF there, so it should repress main ORF expression, and have lower expression level than the non-start reporter, where there is no uORF, no repression. In other uORFs they tested in Figure 6 (Figure 7 in revised version), the non-stall reporters are lower than non-start reporter. Since data they use to build the model is Figure 2B, and calculate the parameters for the whole paper, I just want to make sure it is making sense. I noticed there is another CTG in frame on the 4th codon, this may be alternative start codon in the non-start reporter to trigger some repression.

      To address Reviewer 2’s concern about alternative start codon usage in the non-start reporter, we have now mutated out all near-cognate start codons known to initiate translation with high frequency (Kearse and Wilusz, 2017). These near-cognate start codons consisted of Leu4 CTG, Leu11 CTG, Leu14 TTG, and Leu15 CTG and were mutated to CTA, CTA, TTA, and CTA, respectively. We find that removing the uORF2 near-cognate start codons does not significantly alter NLuc expression (Fig. S1A). This experiment merely rules out one possible source of these similar expression levels. We expect that uORF2 no-start and no-stall reporters’ very similar NLuc expression levels can be rationalized for the several following reasons: 1. uORF2 initiation frequency is quite low. We estimate it to be 5% or less in our modeling based on previous measurements (Cao and Geballe, 1995). Thus, the maximum theoretically possible difference in NLuc expression between no-start and no-stall reporters is 5% or less. 2. Further, re-initiation after uORF2 translation is frequent. We estimate it to be around 50% within our manuscript, which will further decrease repression in the no-stall mutant. Thus, we expect the no-stall mutant to decrease the flux of scanning ribosomes at the main ORF by 2-3% compared to the no-start mutant. 3. Finally, a subtle but important point to note is that our reporter assays are measuring NLuc expression and not the flux of scanning ribosomes at the main ORF NLuc start codon. Since NLuc ORF has a strong start codon context (GCCACC) and the flux of scanning ribosomes is already high for the no-start and no-stall mutants, slight changes in the flux of scanning ribosomes are unlikely to impact NLuc expression. This is because start codon selection is not rate-limiting for protein expression under these conditions. This last point is clearly seen in high throughput reporter assays where the mutations which impact reporter expression in a non-optimal context have little or no effect in an optimal context (see Fig. 5B, 5C in Noderer et al., 2014).

      Thus, in summary, even if the flux of scanning ribosomes is decreased by 3-5% by the no-stall uORF2 mutant compared to the no-start uORF2 mutant, we expect the effect on NLuc expression to be negligible and below the limit of our experimental resolution (which is ~10% based on the standard error across technical replicates).

      Regarding the different behavior of the human uORFs in our manuscript and UL4 uORF2, note the response to Reviewer 1 regarding the usefulness of our human uORF findings.

      2) All the modeling and prediction the authors do are based on average, but we know translation is very heterogeneous. For each ribosome or each 40S, the kinetics varies a lot, the authors should discuss about this part.

      We now discuss translation heterogeneity in the Discussion section in lines 781-794 as follows: “Translation heterogeneity among isogenic mRNAs has been observed in several single molecule translation studies (Boersma et al., 2019; Morisaki et al., 2016; Wang et al., 2020; Wu et al., 2016; Yan et al., 2016). This heterogeneity may arise from variability in intrasite RNA modifications (Yu et al., 2018), RNA binding protein occupancy, or RNA localization. We do not capture these sources of heterogeneity in our modeling since the observables in our simulations are averaged over long simulated time scales and used to predict only bulk experimental measurements. However, our models studied here can readily extended through compartmentalized and state-dependent reaction rates (Harris et al., 2016) to account for the different sources of heterogeneity observed in single molecule studies.”

      3) For modeling related with the queuing-mediated model in Figure 1C. they use 30nt as the ribosome length to count the potential queuing to start codon. But 30nt is the 80S protected fragment with specific conformation. The protected fragment for 80S will change based on different status of ribosome conformation or elongation step. More importantly, for queuing, it is 40S, so they may have a different size. Based on previous 40S ribosome profiling (Archer, Stuart K., et al. Nature 535.7613 (2016): 570-574. And other papers), the length can vary from 19nt to very long, so I don’t think the 30nt length can be used to model queuing in 40S and length sensitivity in the uORF working mechanism.

      We thank Reviewer 2 for highlighting this issue of footprint length heterogeneity that we had not previously addressed. In our modeling, we assume homogenous ribosome footprints. While, heterogeneous ribosome footprints have been observed for small ribosomal subunits (Bohlen et al., 2020; Wagner et al., 2020; Young et al., 2021) and elongating ribosomes (Lareau et al., 2014; Wu et al., 2019), we believe that our modeling of homogenous footprint length is appropriate for the following three reasons: First, with respect to the small ribosomal subunit footprint heterogeneity, we note that TCP-seq studies include crosslinking of eukaryotic initiation factors (eIFs). The presence of these eIFs is thought to be the main source of heterogeneity in scanning ribosome footprints (Bohlen et al., 2020; Wagner et al., 2020). Although crosslinking is often performed, it is not necessary to obtain scanning ribosome footprints, and homogenous 30 nt footprints are observed in the absence of crosslinking (Bohlen et al., 2020). Notably, figure S2 of Bohlen et al. (2020), reproduced as Fig. RR4 below, shows that scanning SSU footprint lengths are tightly distributed around 30 nt when crosslinking is not used.

      Second, in the context of the strong, minutes-long UL4 uORF2 elongating ribosome stall (Cao and Geballe, 1998), collided ribosomes will wait for long periods of time relative to normal elongating or scanning ribosomes. Thus, we expect that associated eIFs dissociate from these dwelling ribosomes as they typically do during start codon selection or during translation of short uORFs (Bohlen et al., 2020). Third, a significant fraction of mRNAs exhibit cap-tethered translation in which eIFs must dissociate from ribosomes before new cap-binding events, and therefore collisions, can occur (Bohlen et al., 2020). Based on above three points, we believe that modeling the footprint of only the scanning ribosomes, and not the associated eIFs, using a single 30 nt length is biologically reasonable. Footprint length heterogeneity of elongating ribosomes is much less drastic than that observed for scanning ribosomes and likely arises from different conformational states such as an empty or occupied A site (Lareau et al., 2014; Wu et al., 2019). While the different elongating ribosome footprints arise from differences in mRNA accessibility to nucleases, it is unclear whether the distance between two collided ribosomes changes across different ribosome conformations. For instance, the queues of elongating ribosomes observed at the Xbp1 mRNA stall occur at regular ~30 nt periodicity (Fig. RR2). Additionally, the stalled elongating ribosome is stuck in a pretranslocation state and has a defined, ~30 nt footprint (Wu et al., 2019), which only leaves room for 1 5′ queued ribosome within UL4 uORF2 whose footprint is conformation sensitive. Finally, a small degree of scanning footprint heterogeneity is also accounted for by our modeling of backward scanning which effectively introduces heterogeneity to collided scanning ribosome location on mRNAs (Figures 6A, S2D in our manuscript). We have now summarized the above points in the Discussion section of the revised manuscript (lines 713-740).

      4) For Figure 5B (Figure 6B in revised version), besides the modeling length part I have mentioned above, when the authors increase the length of uORF, the sequence is also changed, which may introduce other side effect. So, if the authors want to conclude about the queuing part, they should rethink about the length for both modeling and validation, plus control for the sequence they added to increase the length of uORF, for example use different sequence when manipulate the length.

      As suggested by the Reviewer, we have now varied the length of uORF2 using a different, unrelated donor sequence encoding the FLAG peptide and observe similar results (Fig. S4 in our manuscript) to our original experiment with the YFP-encoding sequence (Fig. 6B in our manuscript). A slight trend towards derepression with longer uORFs is observed in both cases. This effect might arise due to decreased stall strength caused by higher nascent peptide protrusion out of the exit tunnel leading to cotranslational folding (Bhushan et al., 2010; Nilsson et al., 2015; Wilson et al., 2016) or nascent chain factors (Gamerdinger et al., 2019; Weber et al., 2020) exerting a pulling force on the peptide. Importantly, we do not see the periodic change in repression predicted by the queueing model (Figure 6A, yellow-green lines).

      Minor comments • Specific experimental issues that are easily addressable. 5) It is unclear how the luciferase assays were analyzed considering the background noise. If the NLuc expression is low, close to the background, then how to extract or normalize the background will influence the expression level, thus fold change for different reporter/condition.

      To account for the luciferase background, we subtracted background from measured data values. To show that expression is rarely close to background (from mock transfections), we included a supplementary figure showing raw NLuc and FLuc values (Fig. S1B). Also note the response to Reviewer 1 regarding a no-start-codon control having a 20-fold lower signal than the WT UL4 uORF2 construct.

      • Are prior studies referenced appropriately? yes • Are the text and figures clear and accurate? Mostly good • Do you have suggestions that would help the authors improve the presentation of their data and conclusions? Have a main figure about the modeling part.

      As suggested by the Reviewer, we have now added visual representations of the reactions as a new main figure (Fig. 3). We also moved the modeling workflow figure from the supplementary set of figures to this main figure (Fig. 3). We thank the reviwer for this suggestion that greatly improves the presentation of our modeling methodology

      • Place the work in the context of the existing literature (provide references, where appropriate). Recent years, there has been a lot of study about small open reading frames, while for uORFs are known to repress translation, the regulatory mechanism is not known yet, there are just different models not validated yet (Young & Wek, 2016). Also, under normal conditions and stress conditions, uORF can play both repressive and stimulative role in main ORF translation (Orr, Mona Wu, et al. NAR 48.3 (2020): 1029-1042.). This paper is the first study to put all the uORF working hypothesis with buffering effect together, they use modeling to explain how under each hypothesis, buffering may happen or not. >• State what audience might be interested in and influenced by the reported findings. It will be interesting to people, who study molecular biology, biochemistry for translation regulation, especially uORFs. The modeling people may also find it interesting, how they could adapt modelinbeew keywords to help the authors contextualize your point of view. Indicate if there are any parts of the paper that you do not have sufficient expertise to evaluate. I have extensive experience working in the translation regulation field and I feel extremely comfortable to discus all the experimental part including individual reporters as well as genome wide. But I do not consider an expert in the modelling section of this work.

      Reviewer #3 :

      Summary Small ORFs are prevalent in eukaryotic genomes with variety of functions. Recent technological advances enable their detection, yet our understanding on the mode of action remains quite rudimentary. The manuscript by Bottorff, Geballe and Subramaniam aims at elucidating the function of UL4 uORF in the CMV, and thus, it is on timely and topical research. The authors measure the uORF -controlled expression of the well-studies UL4 uORF and kinetically model the initiation behavior. Within a second uORF, a diproline pair controls initiation of the downstream main ORF sensing ribosomal collisions between a scanning small subunit and an 80S positioned at the canonical start of the main ORF. The stalling at both proline codons is envisioned as a kinetic window to sense any elongation-competent 80S at initiation and thus, control the ribosomal load and expression. Such diproline tandems are present in some uORFs in human transcriptome, hence representing more pervasive control mechanism. Significance I am unable to comment in depth on the modeling algorithms and simulations as this is outside of my expertise. The experiments are reasonably designed to test various models of uORF regulation and set the frame for the modelling. The idea that various stress factors would decrease canonical initiation and consequently would reflect the number of initiating ribosomes are adequately tested by varying the number of initiating ribosomes. The discovery of the two terminal prolines, that are also found in other human uORFs, is appealing mode of controlling stalling-driven downstream initiation. However, the lack of experimental support with the human uORFs may indicate additional contributions. This raises the question as to whether the proline codon identity plays a role? Since codons are read with different velocity which is mirrored by the tRNA concentration. It would be good to address whether special proline codons have been evolutionarily selected in CMV and whether the kinetics of stalling strongly depends on the codon identity. Are both prolines in the tandem using the same codon? Along that line, are the same proline codons used in the human diproline-containing counterparts? Consequently, the P to A mutation may have altered the codon usage and could be the reason for the nonlinear effect in the human sequenced. In this case, it would make sence to use Ala-codons with similar codon usage as the natural prolines?

      We thank the Reviewer for raising this point about the role of codon usage. The tandem proline residues do not use the same codon (CCG then CCT). The two C-terminal proline residues in uORF2 are necessary for the elongating ribosome stall (Bhushan et al., 2010; Degnin et al., 1993; Wilson et al., 2016), but it has been previously shown that the identity of the codon does not significantly impact repression (Degnin et al., 1993). The human uORFs generally have 1 of the 2 Pro codons in common with the uORF2 Pro codons. Given that most of the human uORF P to A mutations behave similarly (Figure 7) irrespective of the original proline codon, we believe that codon usage does not impact repression by these uORFs. Moreover, as explained in response to Reviewer 1 and 2’s questions, we believe that the human uORFs containing terminal diprolines may partially repress translation via nascent peptide effects, but the majority of the repression likely arises from efficient siphoning of scanning ribosomes from the main ORF by the uORF (Fig. 1A in our manuscript).

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      Ivanov, I.P., Shin, B.-S., Loughran, G., Tzani, I., Young-Baird, S.K., Cao, C., Atkins, J.F., and Dever, T.E. (2018). Polyamine Control of Translation Elongation Regulates Start Site Selection on the Antizyme Inhibitor mRNA via Ribosome Queuing. Mol Cell 70, 254–264.e6.

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      Nilsson, O.B., Hedman, R., Marino, J., Wickles, S., Bischoff, L., Johansson, M., Müller-Lucks, A., Trovato, F., Puglisi, J.D., O’Brien, E.P., et al. (2015). Cotranslational Protein Folding inside the Ribosome Exit Tunnel. Cell Reports 12, 1533–1540.

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      Wilson, D.N., Arenz, S., and Beckmann, R. (2016). Translation regulation via nascent polypeptide-mediated ribosome stalling. Current Opinion in Structural Biology 37, 123–133.

      Wolin, S.L., and Walter, P. (1988). Ribosome pausing and stacking during translation of a eukaryotic mRNA. EMBO J 7, 3559–3569.

      Wu, B., Eliscovich, C., Yoon, Y.J., and Singer, R.H. (2016). Translation dynamics of single mRNAs in live cells and neurons. Science 352, 1430–1435.

      Wu, C.C.-C., Zinshteyn, B., Wehner, K.A., and Green, R. (2019). High-Resolution Ribosome Profiling Defines Discrete Ribosome Elongation States and Translational Regulation during Cellular Stress. Molecular Cell 73, 959–970.e5.

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      Young, D.J., Meydan, S., and Guydosh, N.R. (2021). 40S ribosome profiling reveals distinct roles for Tma20/Tma22 (MCT-1/DENR) and Tma64 (eIF2D) in 40S subunit recycling. Nat Commun 12, 2976.

      Yu, J., Chen, M., Huang, H., Zhu, J., Song, H., Zhu, J., Park, J., and Ji, S.-J. (2018). Dynamic m6A modification regulates local translation of mRNA in axons. Nucleic Acids Research 46, 1412–1423.

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      Referee #3

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Small ORFs are prevalent in eukaryotic genomes with variety of functions. Recent technological advances enable their detection, yet our understanding on the mode of action remains quite rudimentary. The manuscript by Bottorff, Geballe and Subramaniam aims at elucidating the function of UL4uORF in the CMV, and thus, it is on timely and topical research. The authors measure the uORF -controlled expression of the well-studies UL4 uORF and kinetically model the initiation behavior. Within a second uORF, a diproline pair controls initiation of the downstream main ORF sensing ribosomal collisions between a scanning small subunit and an 80S positioned at the canonical start of the main ORF. The stalling at both proline codons is envisioned as a kinetic window to sense any elongation-competent 80S at initiation and thus, control the ribosomal load and expression. Such diproline tandems are present in some uORFs in human transcriptome, hence representing more pervasive control mechanism.

      Significance

      I am unable to comment in depth on the modeling algorithms and simulations as this is outside of my expertise. The experiments are reasonably designed to test various models of uORF regulation and set the frame for the modelling. The idea that various stress factors would decrease canonical initiation and consequently would reflect the number of initiating ribosomes are adequately tested by varying the number of initiating ribosomes.<br /> The discovery of the two terminal prolines, that are also found in other human uORFs, is appealing mode of controlling stalling-driven downstream initiation. However, the lack of experimental support with the human uORFs may indicate additional contributions. This raises the question as to whether the proline codon identity plays a role? Since codons are read with different velocity which is mirrored by the tRNA concentration, it would be good to address whether special proline codons have been evolutionarily selected in CMV and whether the kinetics of stalling strongly depends on the codon identity. Are both prolines in the tandem using the same codon? Along that line, are the same proline codons used in the human diproline-containing counterparts? Consequently, the P to A mutation may have altered the codon usage and could be the reason for the nonlinear effect in the human sequenced. In this case, it would make sence to use Ala-codons with similar codon usage as the natural prolines?

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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary:

      In this paper, the authors are exploring the uORF regulatory mechanism. They first discussed five general models how uORFs might work to repress and buffering main ORF translation, then they mainly focus on the UL4 uORF2 for the potential mechanism. They use both computer modeling and experimental validation with reporter assay in 293t cell line. Based on their model, and few experimental results when they change the translation initiation rate and/or length of dORF, they propose it may work through 40S dissociation model, since the buffering effect is not uORF length sensitive.

      Major comments:

      • Are the key conclusions convincing?<br /> The modeling for different mechanisms is insightful, but some modeling parameters and experimental validation are not conclusive and validation of few of them can enforce the conclusions.
      • Should the authors qualify some of their claims as preliminary or speculative, or remove them altogether?<br /> Yes, the part about queuing and length sensitive is not convincing to me, it should be modified and reduce the statement strength.
      • Would additional experiments be essential to support the claims of the paper? Request additional experiments only where necessary for the paper as it is, and do not ask authors to open new lines of experimentation.<br /> Yes, please see the major concerns
      • Are the suggested experiments realistic in terms of time and resources? It would help if you could add an estimated cost and time investment for substantial experiments.<br /> They will need to re-think about the modeling, and validation in Figure 5, there are validation experiments that can be done in weeks and in a cost-efficient manner that can enforce the conclusions.
      • Are the data and the methods presented in such a way that they can be reproduced?<br /> Most of them are good
      • Are the experiments adequately replicated and statistical analysis adequate?<br /> Yes

      I have some major concerns about the paper:

      1. It is a bit confusing to me in Figure 2C, the reporter assays, that non-start codon reporter and non-stall reporter has same expression level. In theory, the non-stall reporter still has uORF there, so it should repress main ORF expression, and have lower expression level than the non-start reporter, where there is no uORF, no repression. In other uORFs they tested in Figure 6, the non-stall reporters are lower than non-start reporter. Since data they use to build the model is Figure 2B, and calculate the parameters for the whole paper, I just want to make sure it is making sense. I noticed there is another CTG in frame on the 4th codon, this may be alternative start codon in the non-start reporter to trigger some repression.
      2. All the modeling and prediction the authors do are based on average, but we know translation is very heterogeneous. For each ribosome or each 40S, the kinetics varies a lot, the authors should discuss about this part.
      3. For modeling related with the queuing-mediated model in Figure 1C. they use 30nt as the ribosome length to count the potential queuing to start codon. But 30nt is the 80S protected fragment with specific conformation. The protected fragment for 80S will change based on different status of ribosome conformation or elongation step. More importantly, for queuing, it is 40S, so they may have a different size. Based on previous 40S ribosome profiling (Archer, Stuart K., et al. Nature 535.7613 (2016): 570-574. And other papers), the length can vary from 19nt to very long, so I don't think the 30nt length can be used to model queuing in 40S and length sensitivity in the uORF working mechanism.
      4. For Figure 5B, besides the modeling length part I have mentioned above, when the authors increase the length of uORF, the sequence is also changed, which may introduce other side effect. So, if the authors want to conclude about the queuing part, they should rethink about the length for both modeling and validation, plus control for the sequence they added to increase the length of uORF, for example use different sequence when manipulate the length.

      Minor comments:

      • Specific experimental issues that are easily addressable.<br /> It is unclear how the luciferase assays were analyzed considering the background noise. If the NLuc expression is low, close to the background, then how to extract or normalize the background will influence the expression level, thus fold change for different reporter/condition.
      • Are prior studies referenced appropriately?<br /> yes
      • Are the text and figures clear and accurate?<br /> Mostly good
      • Do you have suggestions that would help the authors improve the presentation of their data and conclusions?<br /> Have a main figure about the modeling part.

      Significance

      • Describe the nature and significance of the advance (e.g. conceptual, technical, clinical) for the field.<br /> It is an interesting area, using modeling with experiment validation to understand uORF regulation mechanism, the kinetics and interplay between different translation steps, it will help us to understand uORF buffering in stress conditions.<br /> Also bring modeling method with reporter validation to the translation field, will provide clues to the molecular mechanism study, especially in complex situation.
      • Place the work in the context of the existing literature (provide references, where appropriate).<br /> Recent years, there has been a lot of study about small open reading frames, while for uORFs are known to repress translation, the regulatory mechanism is not known yet, there are just different models not validated yet (Young& Wek, 2016). Also, under normal conditions and stress conditions, uORF can play both repressive and stimulative role in main ORF translation (Orr, Mona Wu, et al. NAR 48.3 (2020): 1029-1042.). This paper is the first study to put all the uORF working hypothesis with buffering effect together, they use modeling to explain how under each hypothesis, buffering may happen or not.
      • State what audience might be interested in and influenced by the reported findings.<br /> It will be interesting to people, who study molecular biology, biochemistry for translation regulation, especially uORFs. The modeling people may also find it interesting, how they could adapt modeling to complex biology process and contribute to the understanding.
      • Define your field of expertise with a few keywords to help the authors contextualize your point of view. Indicate if there are any parts of the paper that you do not have sufficient expertise to evaluate.<br /> I have extensive experience working in the translation regulation field and I feel extremely comfortable to discus all the experimental part including individual reporters as well as genome wide. But I do not consider an expert in the modelling section of this work.
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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary:

      Bottorff et al test several models of uORF-mediated regulation of main ORF translation using the uORF2 of CMV UL4 gene, a system that has been previously experimentally characterized by the authors. They first train a computational model to recapitulate the observed experimental effects of mutations in uORF2, and then use the model to infer which uORF parameters may confer buffering against reduced ribosome loading that typically occurs upon biological perturbation. The authors then find that: i) the uORF2 confers buffering, ii) the uORF2 mechanism adjusts to computational predictions for the collision-mediated 40S dissociation model of uORF-mediated regulation.

      Major comments:

      1. Figure 4: Which is the dynamic range of the WT vs the no-stall construct? In the WT construct, main ORF translation is already quite repressed, and detecting further repression may be more difficult than in the no-stall construct. In other words, the differences that authors are detecting between the WT and no-stall constructs might be due to a potential lower dynamic range of the WT construct.
      2. The authors conclude that uORF2 follows the collision-mediated 40S dissociation model, based on fitness of their experimental results with predictions from their mathematical modeling regarding distance between uORF2 initiation codon and the stalling site. But can the authors actually directly prove that there are no 40S subunits accumulating behind the stalled 40S using Ribo-Seq or TCP-Seq?
      3. Experimental data in Figures 2, 4 and 5 include 3 technical replicates. Sound conclusions typically require biological replicates. Further, the number of replicates in Figure 6 has not been indicated.

      Minor comments:

      1. Figure 4: It is strange that a PEST sequence had to be introduced in the construct of part B in order to observe reliable differences, but not in constructs of parts A and C. Can the authors explain?
      2. Figure 6: Unfortunately, the authors find no other human uORFs with terminal diproline motifs that are so essential for main ORF repression as uORF2. In this light, can the authors comment further on the usefulness of their findings for human genes? Have the authors searched for viral RNAs with similar features? Please, notice that the gene PPP1R37 has not been mentioned in the main text.

      Significance

      This manuscript represents an interesting effort to distinguish mechanisms of uORF-mediated regulation based on mathematical modeling, and might be useful for the translation community.<br /> My expertise: Regulation of translation.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      1. General Statements [optional]

      This section is optional. Insert here any general statements you wish to make about the goal of the study or about the reviews.

      The goal of our study was to evaluate the role of the RNA binding protein SAM68 in the regulation of cell adhesion and adaptation of endothelial cells to their extracellular environment. We showed that SAM68 depletion affected endothelial cell behavior by impairing adhesion site maturation and compromising basement membrane assembly.

      We are pleased that the reviewers found our study to be interesting, well written and clear, with findings that are supported by carefully designed experiments. Importantly, we would like to thank the reviewers for their careful analysis of our work and for their clear and constructive comments.

      One common query was whether the regulation of β-actin mRNA localization at adhesion sites, and FN1 gene transcription by SAM68 in endothelial cells involves direct interactions with the mRNA and promoter, respectively. This important point will be addressed with additional experiments in order to strengthen our hypothesis.

      A second point that emerged from the reviews relates to the interdependence of SAM68 multi-layered effects on cell adhesions and FN1 gene transcription. Our response to this issue is discussed below and has been clarified in the revised manuscript.

      Lastly, since in vivo studies are not feasible locally or in a reasonable timeframe, our claim that SAM68 tunes an endothelial morphogenetic program has been toned down in the revised manuscript. Nonetheless, our data clearly show that SAM68 is a major regulator of endothelial adhesion and conditioning of the subendothelial basement membrane.

      Altogether, the proposed experiments and revisions will solidify our data and improve our study thus providing “a significant advance towards understanding the multiple roles of RNA-binding proteins and their coordination in a study system with physiologically relevant connections”, as stated by Reviewer#3.

      2. Description of the planned revisions

      Insert here a point-by-point reply that explains what revisions, additional experimentations and analyses are planned to address the points raised by the referees.

      To answer critical points raised by the 3 referees, we plan to implement our work with 3 main sets of experiments:

      Set 1 of experiments: Analysis of direct interaction between SAM68 and b-actin mRNA by RIP in endothelial cells according to an improved version of published protocols and results from (Li and Richard, 2016).

      Set 2 of experiments: Analysis of a direct interaction between SAM68 and the FN1 promoter by ChIP in endothelial cells according to published protocols and results from (Li and Richard, 2016).

      Set 3 of experiments: Assessment of the dual functions of SAM68 and their interconnections by i) FN rescue (expression of exogenous FN in SAM68-depleted cells) or ii) by expression of SAM68 mutants.

      In addition, we are generating tools to address the dynamic localization of b-actin in endothelial cells following SAM68 perturbations in endothelial cells (MS2 lentiviral constructs and antisense oligonucleotides designed to abrogate SAM68 recruitment onto b-actin mRNA).

      Below, we describe how these sets of experiment will address Reviewers’ comments and queries in a point-by-point reply.

      Reviewer #1

      • The authors claim that SAM68 interacts with B-actin mRNA to delivery to sites of adhesion only based on siRNA-mediated knockdown experiments. Is the binding of SAM68 to B-actin dynamic process that changes with time? The authors could perform RIP experiments at different stages of cell adhesion - from early points when SAM68 is peripheric to later stages when it homogeneously distributed - to show a potential dynamic interaction with B-actin mRNA.

      β-actin mRNA has been previously identified as a direct target of SAM68 in several published works performed by different groups (Itoh et al., 2002; Klein et al., 2013; Mukherjee et al., 2019). SAM68 binding site has been mapped to a 50 nt length sequence located in the 3’UTR of β-actin mRNA but direct binding of SAM68 onto β-actin mRNA has never been shown in endothelial cells. To this end, we will perform RIP experiments (Set 1 of experiments) to first identify direct recruitment of SAM68 to β-actin mRNA in endothelial cells (as suggested by reviewer 2 as well). Secondly, to address the dynamics of SAM68 interactions with β-actin mRNA we will assess direct interactions of SAM68 with β-actin mRNA at different stages of cell adhesion. These experiments will be conducted using an adapted version of the published SAM68 RIP protocol (Li and Richard, 2016).

      • The article would substantially benefit from live visualisation of B-actin localisation with MS2 tagged transcripts in SAM68 knockdown contexts. This would solidify the proposed mRNA delivery SAM68-mediated mechanism. Although this should not be hard to carry out given the availability of MS2-labelled animals, I understand access to the tools may constitute a major hurdle.

      As mentioned by Reviewer 1, access to MS2-labelled animals and carrying out in vivo experiments in mouse endothelial cells would be a roadblock for our team in the context of this work. Nonetheless, we fully agree that live visualization of β-actin mRNA recruitment at adhesions would solidify our hypothesis. Therefore, we are currently setting up in cellulo experiments in endothelial cells to visualize MS2-β-actin reporters (Yoon et al., 2016), in presence of control or SAM68 binding site-directed antisense blocking oligonucleotides, as previously described (Klein et al., 2013).

      Minor comment:

      • Could the authors run the eGFP-SAM68 movies for longer periods to show the dynamic localisation of the protein during spreading? These experiments would support the data based on fixed material.

      We thank Reviewer 1 for this suggestion and will adjust our imaging pipeline for longer time acquisitions taking caution not to impact cell dynamics due to extended laser exposure.

      Reviewer #2

      • The authors reference previous work defining SAM68 as a beta-actin mRNA interacting protein, however, experiments confirming this in endothelial cells and that this occurs during normal focal adhesion assembly are important.

      This concern will be addressed by Set 1 of experiments (RIP assays) as described in our response to the comments of Reviewer 1.

      • Likewise, experiments addressing how important this action is for focal adhesion function are critical. For example, the beta-actin RNA-binding site of SAM68 could be identified and perturbed to assess the direct impact of this mRNA delivery on FAK-Y397 phosphorylation, focal adhesion assembly, adhesion, cell spreading and migration/sprouting. Without these or similar experiments, the importance of SAM68-mediated beta-actin mRNA delivery is unknown.

      The beta-actin RNA-binding site of SAM68 has previously been identified (Itoh et al., 2002) and antisense blocking oligonucleotides designed to target this sequence have been shown to abrogate SAM68 recruitment onto β-actin mRNA in neurons (Klein et al., 2013). In order to determine whether SAM68 delivery of β-actin mRNA is directly involved in focal adhesion assembly and signalling, we will use the published antisense oligonucleotides to block SAM68 recruitment and assess FAK-Y397 phosphorylation in our bead model.

      • Indeed, if this is not important for FAK-Y397 phosphorylation and focal adhesion assembly, then experiments need to be designed to assess how SAM68 achieves FAK phosphorylation/maturation to provide any significant insight into SAM68 function.

      To address this point, we have generated an RNA binding mutant of SAM68 (KH domain) for analysis of FAK phosphorylation using the bead assay. Importantly, SAM68 is a multi-domain protein that harbors protein/protein interaction domains (SH2 and SH3 binding domains) and it is known to act as a scaffolding protein, in TNFRα signaling for instance (Ramakrishnan and Baltimore, 2011). Therefore, we have also generated lentiviral constructs containing mutations in the SH2 or SH3 binding domains of SAM68 to interrogate its potential signaling adaptor function.

      • The data as presented suggest that a key function of SAM68 is to drive fibronectin (and perhaps other ECM gene) transcription. However, more experiments are needed to validate this conclusion. For example, increased FN1 promoter activity in luciferase assays may be an indirect consequence of feedback to the promoter upon SAM68-mediated action on, amongst other possible actions, focal adhesion signaling, FN transcript splicing or ECM remodeling. Experiments confirming that SAM68 interacts with the endogenous ECM gene promoter would be critical (e.g. via ChIP), as would disruption of the trans-activating action of SAM68 to directly assess the impact of this function (versus modulation of focal adhesion dynamics) on focal adhesion assembly, adhesion, cell spreading and migration/sprouting.

      We fully agree that ChIP experiments to identify recruitment of SAM68 onto the endogenous FN1 promoter in endothelial cells would be required to confirm direct transcriptional activation of the FN1 gene in these cells. Therefore, we will perform these experiments (Set 2) according to a published SAM68 ChIP protocol (to be adapted for endothelial cells) which allowed for the demonstration of specific recruitment of SAM68 onto P21 or PUMA promoters, as well as its transcriptional co-activating activity (Li and Richard, 2016).

      Regarding possible indirect effects of FN1 promoter activity in the luciferase assay shown in Figure 1F on HEK293 cells, we would like to point out that, in addition to their high transfection efficiency, HEK293 cells were chosen for this assay because they display nearly undetectable expression of FN and they are unable to assemble the molecule (even upon overexpression of exogenous FN, see Efthymiou G et al., JCS 2021). Thus, our results using this system support a direct effect of SAM68 on FN promoter activity. This information has been added to the revised text.

      • In parallel, rescue experiments to determine how recovery of endothelial FN expression impacts adhesion, cell spreading, and migration/sprouting (upon SAM68 knockdown) would determine how important this action is to control of endothelial cell behavior.

      Our previous published data showed that autocrine FN expression regulates adhesion, spreading and migration of endothelial cells and that differences in FN expression levels affect assembly of the protein (Cseh et al., 2010; Radwanska et al., 2017). In SAM68-depleted cells, with compromised FN expression, the rescue of FN expression should allow us to uncouple SAM68 functions at adhesion sites from its role as a transcriptional regulator of FN expression (Set 3 of experiments). Expression of exogeneous FN in SAM68-depleted endothelial cells will be performed using lentiviral FN expression constructs described by our team (Efthymiou et al., 2021).

      • Likewise, experiments designed to determine if broader disruption of COL8A1, POSTN, FBLM1 and BGN expression are direct (or indirect, e.g., due to FN disruption) would be important to understand SAM68 function.

      The same set of experiments (Set 3) will be used to analyze by qRT-PCR the expression of COL8A1, POSTN, FBLN1 and BGN mRNAs upon the rescue of FN expression in SAM68-depleted cells.

      • Loss of SAM68 expression in other cell types is known to perturb migration, whereas migration is enhanced in endothelial cells upon SAM68 knockdown. Why would this be the case? Is it that the proposed negative impact of FN production on motility is greater than the positive impact of SAM68 focal adhesion dynamics in endothelial cells versus other cell types? Exploration of the relative impact of these proposed dual functions (using additional experiments as mentioned above) is critical to make sense of these somewhat conflicting observations.

      This point relating to the balance between the negative impact of SAM68-stimulated FN production on motility and the positive impact of SAM68 on focal adhesion dynamics in endothelial cells, is very interesting. Set 3 of experiments, which includes expression of exogenous FN and assessment of cell motility in SAM68-depleted endothelial cells, should allow us to clarify this issue.

      Previous work has implicated phosphorylation of SAM68 as a key trigger of its activity (Locatelli and Lange, 2011, Naro et al., 2022). Additional work exploring the impact of SAM68 phosphorylation on focal adhesion dynamics and ECM gene expression/remodeling (e.g. using phospho-mutants) in this manuscript would have strengthened the message.

      The regulation of SAM68 activity by phosphorylation is a complex question as SAM68 has multiple sites of phosphorylation by serine/threonine and tyrosine kinases. One of these sites (Y440) is a known substrate of Src, a major kinase activated at the cell membrane during adhesion. We are currently generating a Src phosphorylation mutant of SAM68 (Y440F) which could be used to address the impact of SAM68 phosphorylation on integrin signaling and ECM gene expression/remodeling.

      Reviewer #3

      • the authors describe the observed phenotypes as resulting from 'coalescent activities' of SAM68 that play a role in the adaptation of ECs to the extracellular environment. However, it is unclear whether and which of the observed effects result from direct local functions of different SAM68 pools, versus reflecting indirect downstream consequences of one major function. For example, the effects on transcription could be a result of altered adhesion signaling and might occur independently of nuclear SAM68. Or the effects on adhesions could be an indirect consequence of altered transcription of ECM genes, independent of the transient accumulation of SAM68 at the periphery. To support that these are distinct and direct SAM68 functions, the authors would have to provide more evidence for the involvement of SAM68 in the studied processes (e.g. is SAM68 observed by CHIP at promoter regions of ECM genes whose transcription is affected?)

      As recommended by Reviewer 2 as well, we will perform ChIP experiments to document the direct recruitment of SAM68 onto the FN1 promoter (Set 2 of experiments).

      • and try to uncouple them to assess their relative contributions and potential connections in the observed phenotypes (e.g. it would be informative to attempt to rescue the knockdown phenotypes with mutants of SAM68 that cannot be imported into the nucleus or that cannot bind RNA or that cannot be phosphorylated by Src_

      Set 3 of experiments should allow us to uncouple dual functions of SAM68 in endothelial cells. In these experiments, integrin signaling defects will be evaluated in SAM68–depleted cells following the rescue of FN expression. Persistence of the adhesion site defect would indicate that transcriptional activity and adhesion site regulation by SAM68 are distinct events. Moreover, as indicated above, we are generating lentiviral constructs of SAM68 mutants with impaired ability to bind RNA or be phosphorylated by Src (Y440F), in order to assess their effect on integrin signaling.

      Minor comment:

      Also, is the effect of SAM68 depletion on pY397-FAK levels local and/or transient? it would be useful to present data on the total amount of pY397-FAK (by IF or western) in control and si-SAM68 cells at early and late stages of spreading

      This point is very interesting and will be tested at early vs late stage of spreading.

      3. Description of the revisions that have already been incorporated in the transferred manuscript

      Please insert a point-by-point reply describing the revisions that were already carried out and included in the transferred manuscript. If no revisions have been carried out yet, please leave this section empty.

      Reviewer #1

      • The authors state that "...both submembranous functions [...] and nuclear functions [...] of SAM68 contribute to the morphogenetic phenotype of angiogenic endothelial cells. Some caution must be taken, as all previous data were obtained from 2D experiments. At this stage it cannot be excluded other mechanisms involved in 3D migration.

      We fully agree with this reviewer’s comment and we have modified the manuscript to take into account the fact that we cannot exclude other mechanisms of action for SAM68 in 3D endothelial cell sprouting experiments However, it is noteworthy that the migration per se of individual cells is not measured in our 3D experiments.

      Minor comments:

      • In Figure 1F, there is a drop-in luciferase activity in cells transfected with higher amounts of vector, rather than an increase with SAM68. Why?

      The luciferase reporter assay is a convenient and well-accepted means of evaluating promoter activities, however, it requires the transfection of increasing amounts of expression plasmids, which often contain strong promoters such as CMV (in our case). Depending on the experimental conditions, a drop in luciferase activity is often observed, due to titration of general transcriptional factors. In our experiments shown in Figure 1F, despite the observed drop in luciferase activity in pcDNA 3.1-transfected cells, transfection of increasing amounts of the SAM68 expression vector induced a significant increase in luciferase activity.

      • The authors claim (and rightly so) that plasmids are hard to transfect into HUVECs when describing luciferase reporter assays. However, they express eGFP-SAM68 (presumably from a plasmid).

      eGFP-SAM68 was delivered and expressed in endothelial cells using a lentiviral vector (this has been specified in the revised manuscript: legend to Movie supplement 1). Although eGFP-SAM68 is successfully expressed, the efficiency of infection is a bit low. Thus, this method is adequate when experiments require observations at the single cell level, such as imaging of endothelial cells expressing eGFP-Sam68. However, the low infection efficiency makes it unsuited for the observation of global effects on the cell population, as is the case for a luciferase assay in which all cells from a given experimental condition are lysed.

      • Some experimental details in the figure legends could be restricted / moved to the methods section.

      • Some typos and British/American spelling inconsistencies (e.g. localisation and localization) need to be corrected throughout the manuscript.

      • Statistical analysis details could be mentioned in figure legends.

      • In page 11, "... proposed to be involved in regulation of early cell adhesion processes and spreading" needs referencing.

      • Y axes in some graphs do not start at 0, which may mislead visual interpretations.

      • "Figure 2-figure supplement 1" in page should read "movie supplement 1"

      We thank Reviewer #1 for these comments which have all been taken into account. Appropriate changes/corrections have been made in the revised version of the manuscript.

      Reviewer #2

      • The title of the manuscript states that SAM68 modulates the morphogenetic program of endothelial cells, yet there are no studies of blood vessel morphogenesis described by this work. Ultimately, in vivo studies of vessel development in SAM68 mutant mice would be required to be able to make this claim.

      We agree that only endothelial cell morphogenesis, and not blood vessel morphogenesis, has been addressed in this study. In light of the reviewer’s recommendation to tone down claims that SAM68 tunes an endothelial morphogenetic program, we have modified the revised manuscript text and title.

      • Place the work in the context of the existing literature (provide references, where appropriate).<br /> SAM68 has previously been identified as an RNA-binding protein associated with the 'adhesome' that regulates cell motility (Huot et al., 2009a, Locatelli and Lange, 2011, Naro et al., 2022). Here, Rekad and colleagues also probe the action of SAM68 in endothelial cell migration, but find this to be enhanced upon SAM68 knockdown - unlike previous studies demonstrating a reduction in motility in similar experiments in other cell types. Indeed, a detailed discussion of this discrepancy would have been appreciated.

      As recommended by Reviewer #2, we have included a more detailed discussion of this point in the revised manuscript.

      Reviewer #3

      Figure 3C: Is the n=3 indicative that only 3 beads were analyzed? Given the relatively small difference, a larger sample size would be useful.

      We thank the Reviewer for pointing out this mistake. Three independent experiments have been performed with quantification of at least 12 beads for each condition. The manuscript has been corrected accordingly (N=3).

      Page 5-6: The statement 'nearly all adhesion sites in SAM68-depleted cells remained smaller than 0.75 um' doesn't seem to accurately reflect the data presented in the right panel of Figure 1C.

      We have modified the units (µm2) of average adhesion size. Nearly all adhesion sites in SAM68-depleted cells remained smaller than 0.75 µm2

      Page 6: there is a reference to a G418 phosphotyrosine antibody. Do the authors mean 4G10 antibody? Also, there is a mention that materials are listed in Supplemental tables 1 and 2, but these were not attached.

      We thank the Reviewer for having noted these typos, and the fact that we omitted to attached Supplemental Tables 1 and 2. This has been corrected in the revised manuscript, to be submitted with the Supplemental Tables.

      4. Description of analyses that authors prefer not to carry out

      Please include a point-by-point response explaining why some of the requested data or additional analyses might not be necessary or cannot be provided within the scope of a revision. This can be due to time or resource limitations or in case of disagreement about the necessity of such additional data given the scope of the study. Please leave empty if not applicable.

      Reviewer #1

      • deHoog et al. 2004 (doi.org/10.1016/S0092-8674(04)00456-8) had shown the presence of SAM68 in SICs. Why do the authors believe that the presence of SAM68 in the periphery in endothelial cells does not mark the formation of SICs in these cells?

      Spreading Initiation Centers (SICs) are described as structures involved in the early step of adhesion which contain SAM68, along with other RNA binding proteins (de Hoog et al., 2004) in MRC5 cells. In the same paper, to test whether SICs are a general feature of cell adhesion, authors evaluated the presence of SICS during adhesion of several other cell including endothelial cells (HUVEC). Among the 6 types of cells tested, SICs were not observed in nonfibroblastic cell types. In accordance with this study, we did not observe SICs, as defined by deHoog et al., in endothelial cells plated onto FN

      • In Shestakova et al 2001 (doi.org/10.1073/pnas.121146098), decreased localisation of B-actin mRNA leads to reduced persistence of direction of movement. Was this measured? Is this not seen here because SAM68 is only responsible for B-actin mRNA localisation at early stages of adhesion?

      We thank Reviewer 1 for this comment. After re-analysis of our migration data we did not detect a significant effect on the persistence of migration in our experimental conditions. This could indeed reflect the temporal regulation by SAM68 of b-actin mRNA localization at the leading edge of cells, although we cannot exclude additional defects caused by SAM68 depletion on adhesion stability and lammelipodial protrusion and consequently cell polarity and directional motility.

      • Although the authors claim that altered ECM deposition in SAM68 deficient cells results from altered transcription, they do not address potential misregulation of translation and secretion.

      We did not address misregulated translation here as FN mRNA levels were significantly decreased in SAM68-depleted cells. The decreased transcript levels were accompanied by decreased protein levels. Upon depletion of SAM68, we detected less FN in both “soluble” (conditioned medium) and “insoluble” (ECM-associated) forms, as shown in the western blots of Figure 4-figure supplement 1. We do not believe that SAM68 silencing impacts FN secretion, as we did not observe differential retention of FN in the cytoplasm of SAM68-depleted cells compared to control cells by immunostaining (Figure 4C). Rather, FN staining was strictly fibrillar (ECM-associated) in both control and SAM68-depleted cells, and the intensity profile baseline values were similarly low. This point has been added to the revised manuscript.

      -In, fact the highlight that whilst the level of some mRNAs encoding basement membrane proteins do not decrease in the absence of SAM68, their incorporation was severely affected. This is worth exploring to strengthen the manuscript.

      This issue was not addressed for other basement membrane components. However, the dichotomy in expression and matrix incorporation of certain basement membrane components is most likely due to the sequential and hierarchical nature of ECM assembly. FN is one of the earliest ECM proteins to be assembled and observations from multiple laboratories have shown that FN orchestrates the assembly of multiple matrix components (reviewed in, (Dallas et al., 2006; Marchand et al., 2019)), including COLIV ((Filla et al., 2017; Miller et al., 2014)).

      • Whilst the data presented in figure 7 is convincing, some more detailed mechanistic analyses could help further comprehend 2D and 3D behaviours. Could it be that the nuclear and cellular roles of SAM68 are somewhat decoupled depending on the environment? Could the RNA localisation functions have a critical role in endothelial sprouting and not so much in 2D migration? Some insights are needed to address these questions and wrap up some loose ends. In its current form, this section of the manuscript is too vague.

      It is known that 2D and 3D culture conditions induce differences in cell behavior, notably through differences in the physical (rigid vs pliable) and biochemical (plastic vs fibrin gel) nature of the environments that differentially regulate mechanotransduction, integrin signaling, cell polarity, etc. Here, we show that migration of endothelial cells on rigid 2D substrates is increased upon SAM68 depletion. On the other hand, the ability of cells to align in capillary-like cords and invade a 3D environment is reduced. Mechanistically, effects of SAM68 on FN production and ECM assembly are likely involved in both contexts by providing an adhesive substrate that restricts cell motility in 2D, or bridges neighboring cells and promotes cell survival in 3D. The purpose of performing the sprouting assay presented here in addition to cell migration assays was not to compare the same functions of SAM68 in these 2 different contexts but rather to illustrate that SAM68 controls endothelial cell behavior in both 2D and 3D environments and thus could significantly impact angiogenesis.

      Reviewer#2

      • Many of the findings are rather superficial or observational, and a detailed mechanistic understanding of SAM68 function is lacking. For example, loss of SAM68 expression reduces beta-actin mRNA recruitment to sites of fibronectin-coated bead adhesion, but how is this regulated and what is its impact on focal adhesion dynamics?

      Both the role of beta-actin mRNA localization on cell adhesion dynamics and the impact of reducing this localization have been extensively documented (Katz et al., 2012; Kislauskis et al., 1994; Shestakova et al., 2001), or (Herbert and Costa, 2019) and references therein. In particular, a specific RNA binding protein called ZBP1 has been shown to localize actin mRNA near focal adhesions (Katz et al., 2012) by a Src kinase-dependent mechanism (Hüttelmaier et al., 2005).

      References

      Cseh B, Fernandez-Sauze S, Grall D, Schaub S, Doma E, Van Obberghen-Schilling E. 2010. Autocrine fibronectin directs matrix assembly and crosstalk between cell-matrix and cell-cell adhesion in vascular endothelial cells. J Cell Sci 123:3989–3999. doi:10.1242/jcs.073346

      Dallas SL, Chen Q, Sivakumar P. 2006. Dynamics of Assembly and Reorganization of Extracellular Matrix ProteinsCurrent Topics in Developmental Biology. Academic Press. pp. 1–24. doi:10.1016/S0070-2153(06)75001-3

      de Hoog CL, Foster LJ, Mann M. 2004. RNA and RNA binding proteins participate in early stages of cell spreading through spreading initiation centers. Cell 117:649–662. doi:10.1016/s0092-8674(04)00456-8

      Efthymiou G, Radwanska A, Grapa A-I, Beghelli-de la Forest Divonne S, Grall D, Schaub S, Hattab M, Pisano S, Poet M, Pisani DF, Counillon L, Descombes X, Blanc-Féraud L, Van Obberghen-Schilling E. 2021. Fibronectin Extra Domains tune cellular responses and confer topographically distinct features to fibril networks. J Cell Sci 134:jcs252957. doi:10.1242/jcs.252957

      Filla MS, Dimeo KD, Tong T, Peters DM. 2017. Disruption of fibronectin matrix affects type IV collagen, fibrillin and laminin deposition into extracellular matrix of human trabecular meshwork (HTM) cells. Exp Eye Res 165:7–19. doi:10.1016/j.exer.2017.08.017

      Herbert SP, Costa G. 2019. Sending messages in moving cells: mRNA localization and the regulation of cell migration. Essays Biochem 63:595–606. doi:10.1042/EBC20190009

      Hüttelmaier S, Zenklusen D, Lederer M, Dictenberg J, Lorenz M, Meng X, Bassell GJ, Condeelis J, Singer RH. 2005. Spatial regulation of beta-actin translation by Src-dependent phosphorylation of ZBP1. Nature 438:512–515. doi:10.1038/nature04115

      Itoh M, Haga I, Li Q-H, Fujisawa J. 2002. Identification of cellular mRNA targets for RNA-binding protein Sam68. Nucleic Acids Res 30:5452–5464. doi:10.1093/nar/gkf673

      Katz ZB, Wells AL, Park HY, Wu B, Shenoy SM, Singer RH. 2012. β-Actin mRNA compartmentalization enhances focal adhesion stability and directs cell migration. Genes Dev 26:1885–1890. doi:10.1101/gad.190413.112

      Kislauskis EH, Zhu X, Singer RH. 1994. Sequences responsible for intracellular localization of beta-actin messenger RNA also affect cell phenotype. J Cell Biol 127:441–451. doi:10.1083/jcb.127.2.441

      Klein ME, Younts TJ, Castillo PE, Jordan BA. 2013. RNA-binding protein Sam68 controls synapse number and local β-actin mRNA metabolism in dendrites. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 110:3125–3130. doi:10.1073/pnas.1209811110

      Li N, Richard S. 2016. Sam68 functions as a transcriptional coactivator of the p53 tumor suppressor. Nucleic Acids Res 44:8726–8741. doi:10.1093/nar/gkw582

      Marchand M, Monnot C, Muller L, Germain S. 2019. Extracellular matrix scaffolding in angiogenesis and capillary homeostasis. Semin Cell Dev Biol, Mammalian innate immunity to fungal infection 89:147–156. doi:10.1016/j.semcdb.2018.08.007

      Miller CG, Pozzi A, Zent R, Schwarzbauer JE. 2014. Effects of high glucose on integrin activity and fibronectin matrix assembly by mesangial cells. Mol Biol Cell 25:2342–2350. doi:10.1091/mbc.e14-03-0800

      Mukherjee J, Hermesh O, Eliscovich C, Nalpas N, Franz-Wachtel M, Maček B, Jansen R-P. 2019. β-Actin mRNA interactome mapping by proximity biotinylation. Proc Natl Acad Sci 116:12863–12872. doi:10.1073/pnas.1820737116

      Radwanska A, Grall D, Schaub S, Divonne SB la F, Ciais D, Rekima S, Rupp T, Sudaka A, Orend G, Van Obberghen-Schilling E. 2017. Counterbalancing anti-adhesive effects of Tenascin-C through fibronectin expression in endothelial cells. Sci Rep 7:12762. doi:10.1038/s41598-017-13008-9

      Ramakrishnan P, Baltimore D. 2011. Sam68 Is Required for Both NF-κB Activation and Apoptosis Signaling by the TNF Receptor. Mol Cell 43:167–179. doi:10.1016/j.molcel.2011.05.007

      Shestakova EA, Singer RH, Condeelis J. 2001. The physiological significance of beta -actin mRNA localization in determining cell polarity and directional motility. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 98:7045–7050. doi:10.1073/pnas.121146098

      Yoon YJ, Wu B, Buxbaum AR, Das S, Tsai A, English BP, Grimm JB, Lavis LD, Singer RH. 2016. Glutamate-induced RNA localization and translation in neurons. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 113:E6877–E6886. doi:10.1073/pnas.1614267113

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      Referee #3

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      In this manuscript Rekad et al. investigate the role of the RNA-binding protein SAM68 in the interactions of endothelial cells with the extracellular matrix. They knockdown SAM68 expression using siRNAs and demonstrate a role in cell migration and angiogenic sprouting. They further extensively characterize the molecular effects of SAM68 loss, including effects associated with adhesions (number and size of focal adhesions, actin cytoskeleton organization, integrin signaling and delivery of beta-actin mRNA to adhesions), as well as effects on transcription and organization of ECM components. They also observe that SAM68 transiently localizes near adhesion sites during early stages of cell spreading, apart from its predominant presence in the nucleus. Based on this, they suggest that SAM68 affects migration and sprouting of endothelial cells through coordinated functions carried out locally both at adhesion sites (where SAM68 controls integrin signaling and mRNA delivery) as well as in the nucleus (where it controls transcription and mRNA splicing). The manuscript is clearly written, and the presented experiments are well-performed. However, the conclusions drawn from these experiments are not fully supported, and in various instances, statements regarding the underlying mechanisms are inferred based on reports of SAM68 functions in other systems.

      For example, the authors describe the observed phenotypes as resulting from 'coalescent activities' of SAM68 that play a role in the adaptation of ECs to the extracellular environment. However, it is unclear whether and which of the observed effects result from direct local functions of different SAM68 pools, versus reflecting indirect downstream consequences of one major function. For example, the effects on transcription could be a result of altered adhesion signaling and might occur independently of nuclear SAM68. Or the effects on adhesions could be an indirect consequence of altered transcription of ECM genes, independent of the transient accumulation of SAM68 at the periphery.

      To support that these are distinct and direct SAM68 functions, the authors would have to provide more evidence for the involvement of SAM68 in the studied processes (e.g. is SAM68 observed by CHIP at promoter regions of ECM genes whose transcription is affected?) and try to uncouple them to assess their relative contributions and potential connections in the observed phenotypes (e.g. it would be informative to attempt to rescue the knockdown phenotypes with mutants of SAM68 that cannot be imported into the nucleus, or that cannot bind RNA, or that cannot be phosphorylated by Src).

      In the absence of additional data, the work is quite descriptive and relies on extrapolations from other studies for supporting the proposed mechanistic model. If further evidence is provided to support it, it would amount to a significant advance towards understanding the multiple roles of RNA-binding proteins and their coordination in a study system with physiologically relevant connections.

      Minor comments for clarifying some existing data:

      Figure 3C: Is the n=3 indicative that only 3 beads were analyzed? Given the relatively small difference, a larger sample size would be useful. Also, is the effect of SAM68 depletion on pY397-FAK levels local and/or transient? it would be useful to present data on the total amount of pY397-FAK (by IF or western) in control and si-SAM68 cells at early and late stages of spreading

      Page 5-6: The statement 'nearly all adhesion sites in SAM68-depleted cells remained smaller than 0.75 um' doesn't seem to accurately reflect the data presented in the right panel of Figure 1C.

      Page 6: there is a reference to a G418 phosphotyrosine antibody. Do the authors mean 4G10 antibody? Also, there is a mention that materials are listed in Supplemental tables 1 and 2, but these were not attached.

      Significance

      See above

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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary:

      In this manuscript, Rekad and colleagues investigate the function of the RNA-binding protein SAM68 in endothelial cell-ECM interactions and remodeling. SAM68 was previously identified as a component of the 'adhesome', and Rekad et. al. further confirms transient co-localization with nascent focal adhesions and reveals that loss of SAM68 triggers disruption to cell spreading and adhesion maturation in endothelial cells. Using fibronectin-coated beads to trigger cell-ECM interactions, Rekad and colleagues further show that pFAK-Y397 is reduced upon SAM68 loss, as is recruitment of beta-actin mRNA to sites of focal adhesion assembly. In parallel, Rekad et. al. uncover additional impacts of SAM68 knockdown on fibronectin deposition, assembly, expression, promoter activity and splicing - as well as broader impacts on expression of other ECM proteins. Overall, this work suggests a dual role for SAM68 in regulation of endothelial focal adhesion dynamics and ECM assembly that negatively regulates cell migration and positively regulates cell sprouting in in vitro assays.

      Major comments:

      • Are the key conclusions convincing?

      The data are well presented and the impact of SAM68 depletion (or over-expression) on focal adhesion state, ECM composition and endothelial cell behavior appear clear. However, the direct function of SAM68 in the observed phenomena remain untested, and interpretation of results either relies heavily on observations based in other systems, or is inadequately followed up with detailed studies of the mechanisms involved. Thus, several conclusions on SAM68 function are not entirely convincing and need to be bolstered with additional experiments.<br /> - Should the authors qualify some of their claims as preliminary or speculative, or remove them altogether?

      Yes, several claims need to be supported with additional experiments (as detailed below). Moreover, the claim that SAM68 tunes an endothelial morphogenetic program is far too speculative based on observations using in vitro assays of vessel branching that do not fully recapitulate vessel morphogenesis. Without additional in vivo work in mouse, or other model systems in which blood vessel morphogenesis can be adequately observed, these claims need to be toned down significantly.<br /> - Would additional experiments be essential to support the claims of the paper?

      Yes, please see detailed below:

      1. Many of the findings are rather superficial or observational, and a detailed mechanistic understanding of SAM68 function is lacking. For example, loss of SAM68 expression reduces beta-actin mRNA recruitment to sites of fibronectin-coated bead adhesion, but how is this regulated and what is its impact on focal adhesion dynamics? The authors reference previous work defining SAM68 as a beta-actin mRNA interacting protein, however, experiments confirming this in endothelial cells and that this occurs during normal focal adhesion assembly are important. Likewise, experiments addressing how important this action is for focal adhesion function are critical. For example, the beta-actin RNA-binding site of SAM68 could be identified and perturbed to assess the direct impact of this mRNA delivery on FAK-Y397 phosphorylation, focal adhesion assembly, adhesion, cell spreading and migration/sprouting. Without these or similar experiments, the importance of SAM68-mediated beta-actin mRNA delivery is unknown. Indeed, if this is not important for FAK-Y397 phosphorylation and focal adhesion assembly, then experiments need to be designed to assess how SAM68 achieves FAK phosphorylation/maturation to provide any significant insight into SAM68 function.
      2. The data as presented suggest that a key function of SAM68 is to drive fibronectin (and perhaps other ECM gene) transcription. However, more experiments are needed to validate this conclusion. For example, increased FN1 promoter activity in luciferase assays may be an indirect consequence of feedback to the promoter upon SAM68-mediated action on, amongst other possible actions, focal adhesion signaling, FN transcript splicing or ECM remodeling. Experiments confirming that SAM68 interacts with the endogenous ECM gene promoter would be critical (e.g. via ChIP), as would disruption of the trans-activating action of SAM68 to directly assess the impact of this function (versus modulation of focal adhesion dynamics) on focal adhesion assembly, adhesion, cell spreading and migration/sprouting. In parallel, rescue experiments to determine how recovery of endothelial FN expression impacts adhesion, cell spreading and migration/sprouting (upon SAM68 knockdown) would determine how important this action is to control of endothelial cell behavior. Likewise, experiments designed to determine if broader disruption of COL8A1, POSTN, FBLM1 and BGN expression are direct (or indirect, e.g. due to FN disruption) would be important to understand SAM68 function.
      3. The title of the manuscript states that SAM68 modulates the morphogenetic program of endothelial cells, yet there are no studies of blood vessel morphogenesis described by this work. Ultimately, in vivo studies of vessel development in SAM68 mutant mice would be required to be able to make this claim.
      4. Loss of SAM68 expression in other cell types is know to perturb migration, whereas migration is enhanced in endothelial cells upon SAM68 knockdown. Why would this be the case? Is it that the proposed negative impact of FN production on motility is greater than the positive impact of SAM68 focal adhesion dynamics in endothelial cells versus other cell types? Exploration of the relative impact of these proposed dual functions (using additional experiments as mentioned above) is critical to make sense of these somewhat conflicting observations.
      5. Are the suggested experiments realistic in terms of time and resources?

      Yes, although this will depend on local availability of personnel and resources.<br /> - Are the data and the methods presented in such a way that they can be reproduced?

      Yes<br /> - Are the experiments adequately replicated and statistical analysis adequate?

      Yes

      Minor comments:

      • Specific experimental issues that are easily addressable.

      n/a<br /> - Are prior studies referenced appropriately?

      Yes<br /> - Are the text and figures clear and accurate?

      Yes<br /> - Do you have suggestions that would help the authors improve the presentation of their data and conclusions?

      n/a

      Significance

      • Describe the nature and significance of the advance (e.g. conceptual, technical, clinical) for the field.

      Here, Rekad and colleagues identify SAM68 as a potential key modulator of focal adhesion dynamics, as its knockdown impacts focal adhesion maturation, signaling and delivery of beta-actin mRNA. Moreover, the authors identify SAM68 expression as being critical for correct ECM gene expression and assembly. Finally, Rekad show that loss of SAM68 expression impacts endothelial cell migration and sprouting in in vitro assays. Overall, these observations identify SAM68 as a key regulator of endothelial cell-ECM interactions that could play an important role in regulating endothelial cell morphogenesis in vivo. However, the mechanistic basis of SAM68 function in focal adhesion dynamics and ECM remodeling still remain unclear. Additionally, if these activities reflect direct actions of SAM68 on focal adhesions and/or ECM expression/remodeling or are indirect consequences of one effect on the other remains unclear. Finally, relevance to blood vessel morphogenesis in vivo also remains unclear.<br /> - Place the work in the context of the existing literature (provide references, where appropriate).

      SAM68 has previously been identified as an RNA-binding protein associated with the 'adhesome' that regulates cell motility (Huot et al., 2009a, Locatelli and Lange, 2011, Naro et al., 2022). Here, Rekad and colleagues also probe the action of SAM68 in endothelial cell migration, but find this to be enhanced upon SAM68 knockdown - unlike previous studies demonstrating a reduction in motility in similar experiments in other cell types. Indeed, a detailed discussion of this discrepancy would have been appreciated. However, the work by Rekad et. al. goes further than previous studies to convincingly demonstrate that SAM68 expression impacts cell-ECM interactions - although the mechanisms of this action are les clear. Previous work has implicated phosphorylation of SAM68 as a key trigger of its activity (Locatelli and Lange, 2011, Naro et al., 2022). Additional work exploring the impact of SAM68 phosphorylation on focal adhesion dynamics and ECM gene expression/remodeling (e.g. using phospho-mutants) in this manuscript would have strengthened the message.<br /> - State what audience might be interested in and influenced by the reported findings.

      The work would be of interest to audiences studying the molecular basis of cell-ECM interactions and/or the broader vascular biology field.<br /> - Define your field of expertise with a few keywords to help the authors contextualize your point of view. Indicate if there are any parts of the paper that you do not have sufficient expertise to evaluate.

      Keywords: Vascular biology. Endothelial. Vascular development.

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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary:

      This interesting manuscript by Rekad et al. explores unappreciated roles of SAM68 in the context of endothelial biology and angiogenesis. The authors apply a series of in vitro assays to demonstrate cytoplasmic and nuclear functions of SAM68 during endothelial cell adhesion, remodelling and ECM deposition. In accordance with other studies, SAM68 localises to the cell periphery during early stages of adhesion, and it is involved in integrin activity. In its absence, FAK signalling is impaired and focal adhesions fail to mature. The involvement of SAM68 in adhesion goes hand-in-hand with its RNA localisation roles during the distribution of B-actin transcripts towards sites of adhesion. On the other hand, SAM68 induces FN deposition, presumably via the positive regulation of FN1 transcription. The abundance of cellular isoforms of FN1 mRNAs are particularly reduced in the absence, suggesting a role in alternative splicing. The authors claim that this is achieved through transcription regulation rather than direct modulation of splicing factors. Other transcripts downstream of SAM68 include basement membrane components, suggesting that its nuclear activity serves as another level of control of adhesion. Finally, the authors claim that whilst the loss of SAM68 enhances motility in 2D, presumably due to the reduced ECM deposition, it reduces endothelial cell invasion in 3D models of angiogenesis.

      Major comments:

      Overall, the article is well written, clear and the findings are supported by carefully designed experiments. The statistical methods seem adequate, and the information provided is likely to allow reproducibility. However, some of results are rather preliminary and could be supported by further experimental work:

      • deHoog et al. 2004 (doi.org/10.1016/S0092-8674(04)00456-8) had shown the presence of SAM68 in SICs. Why do the authors believe that the presence of SAM68 in the periphery in endothelial cells does not mark the formation of SICs n these cells?
      • The authors claim that SAM68 interacts with B-actin mRNA to delivery to sites of adhesion only based on siRNA-mediated knockdown experiments. Is the binding of SAM68 to B-actin dynamic process that changes with time? The authors could perform RIP experiments at different stages of cell adhesion - from early points when SAM68 is peripheric to later stages when it homogeneously distributed - to show a potential dynamic interaction with B-actin mRNA.
      • The article would substantially benefit from live visualisation of B-actin localisation with MS2 tagged transcripts in SAM68 knockdown contexts. This would solidify the proposed mRNA delivery SAM68-mediated mechanism. Although this should not be hard to carry out given the availability of MS2-labelled animals, I understand access to the tools may constitute a major hurdle.
      • In Shestakova et al 2001 (doi.org/10.1073/pnas.121146098), decreased localisation of B-actin mRNA leads to reduced persistence of direction of movement. Was this measured? Is this not seen here because SAM68 is only responsible for B-actin mRNA localisation at early stages of adhesion?
      • Although the authors claim that altered ECM deposition in SAM68 deficient cells results from altered transcription, they do not address potential misregulation of translation and secretion. In, fact the highlight that whilst the level of some mRNAs encoding basement membrane proteins do not decrease in the absence of SAM68, their incorporation was severely affected. This is worth exploring to strengthen the manuscript.
      • Whilst the data presented in figure 7 is convincing, some more detailed mechanistic analyses could help further comprehend 2D and 3D behaviours. Could it be that the nuclear and cellular roles of SAM68 are somewhat decoupled depending on the environment? Could the RNA localisation functions have a critical role in endothelial sprouting and not so much in 2D migration? Some insights are needed to address these questions and wrap up some loose ends. In its current form, this section of the manuscript is too vague.
      • The authors state that "...both submembranous functions [...] and nuclear functions [...] of SAM68 contribute to the morphogenetic phenotype of angiogenic endothelial cells. Some caution must be taken, as all previous data were obtained from 2D experiments. At this stage it cannot be excluded other mechanisms involved in 3D migration.

      Minor comments:

      • "Figure 2-figure supplement 1" in page should read "movie supplement 1"
      • Could the authors run the eGFP-SAM68 movies for longer periods to show the dynamic localisation of the protein during spreading? These experiments would support the data based on fixed material.
      • In Figure 1F, there is a drop in luciferase activity in cells transfected with higher amounts of vector, rather than an increase with SAM68. Why?
      • The authors claim (and rightly so) that plasmids are hard to transfect into HUVECs when describing luciferase reporter assays. However, they express eGFP-SAM68 (presumably from a plasmid).
      • Some experimental details in the figure legends could be restricted / moved to the methods section.
      • Some typos and British/American spelling inconsistencies (e.g. localisation and localization) need to be corrected throughout the manuscript.
      • Statistical analysis details could be mentioned in figure legends.
      • Y axes in some graphs do not start at 0, which may mislead visual interpretations.
      • In page 11, "... proposed to be involved in regulation of early cell adhesion processes and spreading" needs referencing.

      Significance

      This is a very interesting study that details the multi-layered activity of the RBP SAM68. Although many of the individual roles had been unveiled in other cell types, here the authors suggest that this protein simultaneously orchestrates several aspects of endothelial cell adhesion via distinct routes. Thus, the study may be most relevant for researchers working in the fields of developmental and pathological angiogenesis.

      However, the work falls short from being a conceptual advance in its current form, as some conclusions are not fully backed by experimental evidence.

      My expertise: RNA localisation

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      Reply to the reviewers

      1. General Statements [optional]

      We appreciate the efforts the two reviewers had invested in reviewing our manuscript. Their constructive comments will help improve the paper overall.

      2. Description of the planned revisions

      Insert here a point-by-point reply that explains what revisions, additional experimentations and analyses are planned to address the points raised by the referees.

      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity):

      The main point of the current report is that 6mA is present in DNA of Hydractinia, and is introduced randomly into the genome by DNA polymerases, originating from degradation of maternally provided RNA via nucleotide salvage pathway. The authors observed that 6mA levels are changing over development and peak at 16-cell stage, with a sudden decrease to 'background levels' at 64 cell stage, a stage when zygotic genome gets activated. The 6mA drop is Alkbh1 dependent, since upon K/D of Alkbh1, 6mA levels were significantly higher than in control embryos. Authors also observed that AlkbH1 K/D delays zygotic genome activation (ZGA) to later stages, but without any noticeable consequences for the proper development. To demonstrate that 6mA is not controlled via direct DNA methylation, they show that K/D of two potential DNA methyl transferases N6amt1 and Mettl4 does not have any effect on 6mA levels. Supporting their hypothesis, authors demonstrate high activity and imperfect selectivity towards non-modified nucleotides of salvage pathway during embryo development using EU labeling experiments.<br /> In general, the provided data support their model, however, the paper needs some improvements to include missing information and controls before publication.

      Major comments:<br /> 1. Fig 1A shows a schematic where D3-6mA is added to only QTRAP but not QQQ experiment, usually QQQ methods also require isotopic standards for each component quantified to normalize for ionization differences and provide true quantitative information. Why did authors not use dA isotope? The ionization suppression is more pronounced at high concentrations of the components, which is true for dA in the current set up. How do authors control or at least test this?

      We have limited resources of isotopic-labelled standards. Therefore, we initially used QQQ without these standards to obtain data that covered many time points in development to identify the general pattern and key time points of high and low 6mA. Once the QQQ indicated that the 16-cell stage has the highest 6mA and that this drops to background at the 64-cell stage (and remains so later on), we performed QTRAP with the isotope-labeled standard control only for these two stages. Looking at the data resulting from both techniques, it appears that they essentially revealed the same pattern. Since the main focus of the study is on 16- and 64-cell embryos, we feel that the contribution of performing all stages by QTRAP would be marginal. We have performed control experiments to assess ionization suppression for dA and found that it was insignificant. We will add the corresponding data to the Materials and Methods section.

      Fig S1 show that quantification works well, but were the total DNA amounts comparable to the gDNA amount used in actual samples? If yes, please indicate so.

      Yes, the amounts were the same (2mg). We will change the methods sections accordingly.

      1. In line 68 and in fig 1B, 1C there is a mysterious 'Neg. Ctrl 'sample. It is unclear what was the sample and more interestingly in fig 1B the levels in this sample are 0.015% but in fig 1C it is much below 0.001%. Why there is such a striking difference for the identical sample.

      Negative controls were the same amounts (2 µg) of oligonucleotides without 6mA, DNAse-treated exactly like the samples. Figure 1B shows that QQQ is not sensitive enough to reliably detect 6mA concentrations below 0.02%, incapable to distinguish the background 6mA in the negative control from the level of 6mA in the 64-cell stage and later. Therefore, we utilized D3-6mA labelled QTRAP (Figure 1C) and determined that the level in the 64 cells stage embryos was actually ~0.01%. In the negative control, the amount was considerably lower, around 6 ppm (0.0006%).

      1. As I can see authors measured natural isotopologue of 6mA, however traces of contaminant bacterial DNA originating even from recombinant DNA degradation enzymes also have 6mA, giving background signal. In their LC/MS experiments, did authors check if the 6mA comes truly from the gDNA and not from contaminant during DNA purification and processing before MS?

      Yes, we did. As control for the level of 6mA contamination from the enzymatic digestion (sourced from bacteria), we also performed digestion of the negative control (see also answer to previous comment).

      1. Fig 1D in the legend: authors should indicate that samples were already RNAse treated, and Line 80 in the text mentions a second RNase treatment (fig S1C) to confirm the specificity of the DNA staining.

      The samples were indeed RNase-treated. We will modify the legend and the reference to figure 1D on line 80 accordingly.

      1. In lines 86-87, authors compare the LC/MS and sequencing based quantifications, and say they are consistent. Can authors make a figure analogous to fig 1B but using sequencing data?

      The data are already provided in Figure S1E. However, we used a Venn diagram to denote that these figures were generated by a different type of analysis (SMRT-sequencing as opposed to QTRAP). They are consistent but not identical.

      1. Fig 3B and 3C, controls showing the validity of EU staining, are required, such as RNAse treated sample with a signals disappearing; or control embryos without EU, thus having only background signal.

      Indeed, Fig 3C shows an RNase treated sample in which the EU signal is abolished as expected.

      1. Fig 3D specificity control is missing, control embryos without EdU having only background signal.

      The control is provided in Figure 3B. It shows a sample without EdU (treated with EU) and shows the background signal.

      1. Fig 4A legend: 'rescue solution (see text)'. Please describe in the legend what the solution was. Moreover, I did not find clear explanation in the text either, my only guess was from the materials in methods section, where authors used both shAlkbh1 and Alkbh1 mRNA with silent mutations.

      The reviewer is right, this was indeed the control that was used. We will modify the text to clarify this point.

      1. Fig 4B shows many data points per condition and the legend says EU signals (in triplicate), was these triplicate animals with multiple cells, where EU signal from each cell was plotted as a point? Please specify in the legend.

      Yes, triplicate embryos and each cell used as point. The legend will be adapted.

      1. Lines 169-170 state 'the lack of premature ZGA following N6amt1/Mettl4 knockdown (Figure S7B) indicate a lack of methyl transferase that maintains 6mA through embryogenesis' while an experiment indeed demonstrates that these are not the major players in this process, it does not prove these are not DNA methyl transferases. The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. I think authors should at least soften this conclusion.

      We agree and will tone down the relevant statement.

      1. Discussion section describes many experimental data that belong to Results section.

      This is a point also raised by Reviewer #2. We will move these points to the results and expand the discussion.

      1. Fig S8 I think should be a part of the main figure since it is one of the important experiments to prove the high activity and somewhat low selectivity of salvage pathway in the embryos during the critical early stages.

      We had originally left it out to save space. We prefer to leave this decision with the editor.

      1. Fig 5C the model is confusing, authors should improve it.

      It is difficult to describe a complex story using a single static model. Therefore, we will add an animation to the supplemental material to clarify the model.

      1. Fig S8 negative controls showing the specificity of CuAAC staining are missing: control animals/ embryos without EU.

      We will redo these experiments and include appropriate controls.

      1. Authors may find this reference useful: PMID: 32355286.

      We will add this ref.

      1. It is known that in mammals ADAL protein is the one which demethylates m6A nucleotide to clear it from the nucleotide pools and prevent it entering into the salvage pathway (PMID: 29884623). Does Hydractinia Symbiolongicarpus have an ADAL analog? If yes then it would be important to see if knock down/overexpression of this enzyme has any effect on the timing of ZGA. In principle, passively introduced 6mA may be regulatory to proper time the ZGA, and is controlled via an activity of Adal and Alkbh1.

      The gene is present in the Hydractinia genome. We could perform the experiments recommended. We will knock the gene down and look at the effect of this manipulation on ZGA.

      1. Material and methods are missing information:<br /> a. Line 370-371 provide references to the protocols listed or describe the steps.<br /> b. Line 373 standard column based purification protocol, what is it either explain or provide a reference.

      References will be provided.

      Minor points:<br /> Line 79 : 'Fig 1D and S1B', Did authors meant 'Fig1D and S1C'?<br /> Fig 5A Y axis title is missing.<br /> Line 379: 3D1-6mA should be D3-6mA please correct the other appearances as well.<br /> Line 405: terms : dsDNA solutions and standard solutions are confusing please rephrase.<br /> Line 410: Cleaned embryos, what does cleaned mean, be specific.<br /> Line 413: PTx is mentioned, please explain what is it.<br /> Line 415 and line 440 : HCl was washed and embryos were neutralized, I guess it should state : HCl was neutralized and embryos were washed with...'<br /> Line 431: ' before fixed by incubation in PAGA-T..." did authors meant : 'before fixation with PAGA-T...?<br /> Line 435: Permeabilization was done by further washes the fixed embryos with...", did authors meant: Permeabilization was done by an additional wash of the fixed embryos with...?<br /> Line 440: The HCL was washed with what solution?<br /> Line 446: For how long were the PTx washes?<br /> Lines 458-460: the sentence is confusing.<br /> Line 500: 'then used detect' should be 'then used to detect'

      We will adopt all minor points above.

      Reviewer #1 (Significance):

      There are many high profile papers describing the existence of 6mA in gDNA of different organism including insects and mammals. However, there is no proof that it has any biological function. Indeed, recent reports (PMID: 32355286 and 32203414) indicate that in mammalian cells, 6mA is indeed primarily incorporated by DNA polymerases and originates from a salvage pathway. The present report is the first in vivo evidence that confirms this to be the case more generally and, importantly, demonstrates a 6mA effect on ZGA. Hence, this is an important and timely report, which will be interesting to the field, as well as a broad audience to clarify the role of 6mA and the mechanism whereby it is introduced into gDNA.<br /> My expertise: Biochemistry and biology of DNA and RNA modifications, including 6mA. Fair expertise: bioinformatics analysis.

      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity):

      The manuscript reports developmental dynamics of DNA 6mA in the cnidarian Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus. The authors describe an event of a seemingly random accumulation of this DNA modification in 16-cell stage embryos of Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus followed by an apparent clearance of 6mA by the 64-cell stage. Interestingly, the depletion of cnidarian orthologue of the putative 6mA 'demethylase', Alkbh1, results in delay in zygotic transcription accompanied by high levels of DNA 6mA in 64-cell stage cnidarian embryos. The authors suggest that the 6mA they observe originates from random misincorporation of recycled degraded m6A-marked ribo-nucleotides during early cnidarian embryogenesis.<br /> Overall, most of the experiments are performed at high technical level and the paper is generally nicely written. Despite this, in my opinion, the manuscript would benefit from incorporation of several addition controls and answering a number of points on the description/presenation of the data.<br /> Major comments:

      1. In the present version of the manuscript, the authors demonstrate the negative correlation between the presence of 6mA in the genome of cnidarian embryos and transcription. Although, the depletion of Alkbh1 leads to the delay in ZGA, strictly speaking, this effect may be independent of the catalytic function of Alkbh1. Therefore, to make a statement that m6A "random incorporation into the early embryonic genome inhibits transcription" the authors should use a catalytically inactive form of this enzyme as a control in the corresponding experiments and/or (ideally) perform in vitro transcription assays using 6mA-containing substrates.

      We could perform shRNA-mediated Alkbh1 KD and try rescue ZGA by co-injecting a catalytically-inactive Alkbh1 mRNA.

      The suggested in vitro experiment would be inconclusive for two reasons: first, Hydractinia polymerase may respond differently to 6mA; second, 6mA-mediated transcription inhibition could be indirect, requiring the in vivo context. We would like to add that transcription inhibition of 6mA has been demonstrated in vitro using yeast DNA polymerase as cited in the paper.

      1. Despite several experiments suggesting that random incorporation of recycled ribonucleotides occurs in cnidarian embryos, the source of 6mA in their DNA seems currently unclear. Would it be possible to directly test the author's hypothesis by comparing the levels of 6mA upon maternal (and possibly zygotic) depletion of the cnidarian orthologue of RNA m6A methyltransferase Mettl3 in cnidarian embryos? Alternatively, the authors could incubate the embryos in medium supplemented with labeled ribo-m6A followed by checking the levels of DNA 6mA in the embryonic DNA?

      We show that maternal mRNAs are already methylated in the early embryo (Figure 5). Therefore, it would indeed make sense to ablate Mettl3 from the maternal tissue while maternal mRNAs are methylated. However, in the absence of a conditional knockout technique in Hydractinia, this would require generation of CRISPR-Cas9 mutants that would likely die early in their development, long before reaching sexual maturity.

      Instead, we are happy to perform the other experiment suggested by the reviewer to directly demonstrate m6A to 6mA transition.

      Minor comments:<br /> 1. It would be nice to complement Fig. 4, 5, and S7 with immunostaining of the corresponding embryos for 6mA.

      6mA immunostaning is not compatible with EU labeling because, first, they require different types of fixation (PAGA-T vs formaldehyde); second, immunostaining requires RNase treatment to remove m6A which would also remove the EU signal.

      1. The current Discussion contains references for several figures with experimental results. I suggest separating these experimental data from the Discussion. The authors should, in my opinion, make an additional Results chapter and, if possible, expand the Discussion section (that is currently minimal) speculating on significance of their results for different biological systems.

      This has also been requested by Reviewer #1. We will follow the reviewer's recommendation.

      1. The present Title reads like a clear overstatement (at least currently, please see major comments above). The Title should also reference the organism where the observations have been made.

      Following the revision, we believe that both random incorporation of 6mA and a delay in zygotic transcription will be well supported by our data. We will add the organism's name to the title as suggested.

      Reviewer #2 (Significance):

      The presence and significance of DNA 6mA in animal genomes is a very interesting and highly controversial topic. Although a number of studies suggest that relatively high levels of this DNA modification occur in multicellular eukaryotes in different biological/functional contexts, other reports challenged these observations attributing them to different experimental artifacts. In this context, the current paper that provides high quality novel experimental data on the developmental dynamics of DNA 6mA in cnidarian is extremely interesting and timely. Moreover, the author's results and the hypotheses on the function/origin of 6mA in cnidarian embryogenesis may provide a conceptual framework for the interpretation of other 6mA/m6A-related studies performed on different experimental models. Thus, this manuscript will definitely be of interest for a wide range of researchers working in the fields of epigenetics, cancer biology and developmental biology.<br /> I strongly believe that this is an interesting and important study that definitely deserves to be published in a high impact journal.

      3. Description of the revisions that have already been incorporated in the transferred manuscript

      Please insert a point-by-point reply describing the revisions that were already carried out and included in the transferred manuscript. If no revisions have been carried out yet, please leave this section empty.

      4. Description of analyses that authors prefer not to carry out

      Please include a point-by-point response explaining why some of the requested data or additional analyses might not be necessary or cannot be provided within the scope of a revision. This can be due to time or resource limitations or in case of disagreement about the necessity of such additional data given the scope of the study. Please leave empty if not applicable.

      Reviewer #2 suggested four experiments, three of which are either impossible in our system or expected to reveal insignificant information. First, the reviewer suggests ablating Mettl3 from the maternal tissue. While being a good idea in principle, there is no conditional ablation technique available for Hydractinia. Generating CRISPR-Cas9 mutants would likely result in embryonic lethality, long before sexual maturation has been reached.

      Second, the reviewer proposed to perform in vitro experiments with m6A-containing substrates. These experiments are unlikely to reveal useful data since the Hydractinia polymerase may respond differently to methylated adenine than commercially available polymerases. Also, transcription inhibition may be indirect, depending on the in vivo context that cannot be mimicked in vitro.

      Finally, the reviewer suggested expressing a catalytically-dead Alkbh1 in the background of endogenous Alkbh1 knockdown to demonstrate that its function depends on the enzymatic activity to remove 6mA from the genome. While we could perform the experiment (see our reply above), the information emanating from it would arguably be outside the scope of this study.

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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      The manuscript reports developmental dynamics of DNA 6mA in the cnidarian Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus. The authors describe an event of a seemingly random accumulation of this DNA modification in 16-cell stage embryos of Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus followed by an apparent clearance of 6mA by the 64-cell stage. Interestingly, the depletion of cnidarian orthologue of the putative 6mA 'demethylase', Alkbh1, results in delay in zygotic transcription accompanied by high levels of DNA 6mA in 64-cell stage cnidarian embryos. The authors suggest that the 6mA they observe originates from random misincorporation of recycled degraded m6A-marked ribo-nucleotides during early cnidarian embryogenesis.

      Overall, most of the experiments are performed at high technical level and the paper is generally nicely written. Despite this, in my opinion, the manuscript would benefit from incorporation of several addition controls and answering a number of points on the description/presenation of the data.

      Major comments:

      1. In the present version of the manuscript, the authors demonstrate the negative correlation between the presence of 6mA in the genome of cnidarian embryos and transcription. Although, the depletion of Alkbh1 leads to the delay in ZGA, strictly speaking, this effect may be independent of the catalytic function of Alkbh1. Therefore, to make a statement that m6A "random incorporation into the early embryonic genome inhibits transcription" the authors should use a catalytically inactive form of this enzyme as a control in the corresponding experiments and/or (ideally) perform in vitro transcription assays using 6mA-containing substrates.
      2. Despite several experiments suggesting that random incorporation of recycled ribonucleotides occurs in cnidarian embryos, the source of 6mA in their DNA seems currently unclear. Would it be possible to directly test the author's hypothesis by comparing the levels of 6mA upon maternal (and possibly zygotic) depletion of the cnidarian orthologue of RNA m6A methyltransferase Mettl3 in cnidarian embryos? Alternatively, the authors could incubate the embryos in medium supplemented with labeled ribo-m6A followed by checking the levels of DNA 6mA in the embryonic DNA?

      Minor comments:

      1. It would be nice to complement Fig. 4, 5, and S7 with immunostaining of the corresponding embryos for 6mA.
      2. The current Discussion contains references for several figures with experimental results. I suggest separating these experimental data from the Discussion. The authors should, in my opinion, make an additional Results chapter and, if possible, expand the Discussion section (that is currently minimal) speculating on significance of their results for different biological systems.
      3. The present Title reads like a clear overstatement (at least currently, please see major comments above). The Title should also reference the organism where the observations have been made.

      Significance

      The presence and significance of DNA 6mA in animal genomes is a very interesting and highly controversial topic. Although a number of studies suggest that relatively high levels of this DNA modification occur in multicellular eukaryotes in different biological/functional contexts, other reports challenged these observations attributing them to different experimental artifacts. In this context, the current paper that provides high quality novel experimental data on the developmental dynamics of DNA 6mA in cnidarian is extremely interesting and timely. Moreover, the author's results and the hypotheses on the function/origin of 6mA in cnidarian embryogenesis may provide a conceptual framework for the interpretation of other 6mA/m6A-related studies performed on different experimental models. Thus, this manuscript will definitely be of interest for a wide range of researchers working in the fields of epigenetics, cancer biology and developmental biology.<br /> I strongly believe that this is an interesting and important study that definitely deserves to be published in a high impact journal.

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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      The main point of the current report is that 6mA is present in DNA of Hydractinia, and is introduced randomly into the genome by DNA polymerases, originating from degradation of maternally provided RNA via nucleotide salvage pathway. The authors observed that 6mA levels are changing over development and peak at 16-cell stage, with a sudden decrease to 'background levels' at 64 cell stage, a stage when zygotic genome gets activated. The 6mA drop is Alkbh1 dependent, since upon K/D of Alkbh1, 6mA levels were significantly higher than in control embryos. Authors also observed that AlkbH1 K/D delays zygotic genome activation (ZGA) to later stages, but without any noticeable consequences for the proper development. To demonstrate that 6mA is not controlled via direct DNA methylation, they show that K/D of two potential DNA methyl transferases N6amt1 and Mettl4 does not have any effect on 6mA levels. Supporting their hypothesis, authors demonstrate high activity and imperfect selectivity towards non-modified nucleotides of salvage pathway during embryo development using EU labeling experiments.

      In general, the provided data support their model, however, the paper needs some improvements to include missing information and controls before publication.

      Major comments:

      1. Fig 1A shows a schematic where D3-6mA is added to only QTRAP but not QQQ experiment, usually QQQ methods also require isotopic standards for each component quantified to normalize for ionization differences and provide true quantitative information. Why did authors not use dA isotope? The ionization suppression is more pronounced at high concentrations of the components, which is true for dA in the current set up. How do authors control or at least test this? Fig S1 show that quantification works well, but were the total DNA amounts comparable to the gDNA amount used in actual samples? If yes, please indicate so.
      2. In line 68 and in fig 1B, 1C there is a mysterious 'Neg. Ctrl 'sample. It is unclear what was the sample and more interestingly in fig 1B the levels in this sample are 0.015% but in fig 1C it is much below 0.001%. Why there is such a striking difference for the identical sample.
      3. As I can see authors measured natural isotopologue of 6mA, however traces of contaminant bacterial DNA originating even from recombinant DNA degradation enzymes also have 6mA, giving background signal. In their LC/MS experiments, did authors check if the 6mA comes truly from the gDNA and not from contaminant during DNA purification and processing before MS?
      4. Fig 1D in the legend: authors should indicate that samples were already RNAse treated, and Line 80 in the text mentions a second RNase treatment (fig S1C) to confirm the specificity of the DNA staining.
      5. In lines 86-87, authors compare the LC/MS and sequencing based quantifications, and say they are consistent. Can authors make a figure analogous to fig 1B but using sequencing data?
      6. Fig 3B and 3C, controls showing the validity of EU staining, are required, such as RNAse treated sample with a signals disappearing; or control embryos without EU, thus having only background signal.
      7. Fig 3D specificity control is missing, control embryos without EdU having only background signal.
      8. Fig 4A legend: 'rescue solution (see text)'. Please describe in the legend what the solution was. Moreover, I did not find clear explanation in the text either, my only guess was from the materials in methods section, where authors used both shAlkbh1 and Alkbh1 mRNA with silent mutations.
      9. Fig 4B shows many data points per condition and the legend says EU signals (in triplicate), was these triplicate animals with multiple cells, where EU signal from each cell was plotted as a point? Please specify in the legend.
      10. Lines 169-170 state 'the lack of premature ZGA following N6amt1/Mettl4 knockdown (Figure S7B) indicate a lack of methyl transferase that maintains 6mA through embryogenesis' while an experiment indeed demonstrates that these are not the major players in this process, it does not prove these are not DNA methyl transferases. The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. I think authors should at least soften this conclusion.
      11. Discussion section describes many experimental data that belong to Results section.
      12. Fig S8 I think should be a part of the main figure since it is one of the important experiments to prove the high activity and somewhat low selectivity of salvage pathway in the embryos during the critical early stages.
      13. Fig 5C the model is confusing, authors should improve it.
      14. Fig S8 negative controls showing the specificity of CuAAC staining are missing: control animals/ embryos without EU.
      15. Authors may find this reference useful: PMID: 32355286.
      16. It is known that in mammals ADAL protein is the one which demethylates m6A nucleotide to clear it from the nucleotide pools and prevent it entering into the salvage pathway (PMID: 29884623). Does Hydractinia Symbiolongicarpus have an ADAL analog? If yes then it would be important to see if knock down/overexpression of this enzyme has any effect on the timing of ZGA. In principle, passively introduced 6mA may be regulatory to proper time the ZGA, and is controlled via an activity of Adal and Alkbh1.
      17. Material and methods are missing information:
      18. a. Line 370-371 provide references to the protocols listed or describe the steps.
      19. b. Line 373 standard column based purification protocol, what is it either explain or provide a reference.

      Minor points:

      Line 79 : 'Fig 1D and S1B', Did authors meant 'Fig1D and S1C'?

      Fig 5A Y axis title is missing.

      Line 379: 3D1-6mA should be D3-6mA please correct the other appearances as well.

      Line 405: terms : dsDNA solutions and standard solutions are confusing please rephrase.

      Line 410: Cleaned embryos, what does cleaned mean, be specific.

      Line 413: PTx is mentioned, please explain what is it.

      Line 415 and line 440 : HCl was washed and embryos were neutralized, I guess it should state : HCl was neutralized and embryos were washed with...'

      Line 431: ' before fixed by incubation in PAGA-T..." did authors meant : 'before fixation with PAGA-T...?

      Line 435: Permeabilization was done by further washes the fixed embryos with...", did authors meant: Permeabilization was done by an additional wash of the fixed embryos with...?

      Line 440: The HCL was washed with what solution?

      Line 446: For how long were the PTx washes?

      Lines 458-460: the sentence is confusing.

      Line 500: 'then used detect' should be 'then used to detect'

      Significance

      There are many high profile papers describing the existence of 6mA in gDNA of different organism including insects and mammals. However, there is no proof that it has any biological function. Indeed, recent reports (PMID: 32355286 and 32203414) indicate that in mammalian cells, 6mA is indeed primarily incorporated by DNA polymerases and originates from a salvage pathway. The present report is the first in vivo evidence that confirms this to be the case more generally and, importantly, demonstrates a 6mA effect on ZGA. Hence, this is an important and timely report, which will be interesting to the field, as well as a broad audience to clarify the role of 6mA and the mechanism whereby it is introduced into gDNA.

      My expertise: Biochemistry and biology of DNA and RNA modifications, including 6mA. Fair expertise: bioinformatics analysis.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity):

      Summary

      PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) are required for transposon repression and are transcribed from discrete genomic loci termed piRNA clusters. Torimochi was identified as a piRNA cluster in silkworm in 2012, but the incomplete genome assembly hindered its further characterisation. Here, Shoji and colleagues characterised torimochi using the current, recently improved, genome assembly, combined with long-read (MinION) and Sanger sequencing. This reveals that torimochi is a regular Gypsy LTR transposon. Comparison of copy number across strains reveals that torimochi has been particularly active in the BmN4 cell line, showing different insertions between strains. Moreover, piRNAs are produced from multiple torimochi copies across the genome. Lastly, the authors show that torimochi has an open chromatin conformation. The authors propose that torimochi may be a young and still growing piRNA cluster, capable of both trapping other transposable elements and transgenes and of producing piRNAs.

      Major comments

      How are the torimochi-derived piRNAs produced? Which part of the piRNA pathway are required for their production? Determining this would significantly strengthen the study and potentially support the idea that torimochi is a "young and still growing piRNA cluster". Currently, it is unclear what evidence there is for torimochi acting as a piRNA cluster rather than a regular LTR transposon.

      We thank the Reviewer for raising this important point. We have now re-analyzed our piRNA sequencing data and confirmed that 1) production of torimochi-derived piRNAs requires Siwi, the core PIWI protein component in silkworms and 2) torimochi-derived piRNAs show the ping-pong signature, as observed for other typical piRNAs. These data strengthen the idea that torimochi is a cluster that produces canonical piRNAs.

      As originally shown in Fig. 4, torimochi is the most actively translocated transposon in BmN4 cells with extremely high transcription and piRNA production levels and open chromatin structure, thereby representing those transposons that have gained the piRNA production activity in BmN4 cells. To further investigate if torimochi has any special features even among those piRNA-producing transposons in BmN4 cells, we have now performed a new analysis. It is known that well-established piRNA clusters in Drosophila (e.g., the 42AB cluster) have a specialized system for transcriptional activation. However, those specialized transcriptional activators such as Rhino (HP1 variant) and Moonshiner (TFIIA variant) are conserved only within the Drosophila genus, and thus the transcriptional activation systems of piRNA clusters are likely to be different in different organisms. Keeping this in mind, we asked if the transcription mechanism of torimochi is any different from other piRNA-producing transposons in BmN4 cells. Since specific transcriptional activators of piRNAs clusters remain unknown in silkworms (as in many other animals except for Drosophila), we decided to differentiate BmN4 cells into adipocytes so that they lose their “germline-ness” (Akiduki et al., 2007). As expected, the expression of the adipocyte marker BmFABP1 (Fatty Acid-Binding Protein 1) was markedly increased (Fig. 5a), while the expression levels of piRNA-related factors such as Vasa were decreased (Fig. 5b). Importantly, transcription of torimochi was drastically reduced by adipocyte differentiation (Fig. 5c), whereas most other transposons, including those piRNA-producing transposons in BmN4 cells, remained unrepressed or rather increased by differentiation (Fig. 5c and 5d). These findings suggest that, even among those piRNA-producing transposons in BmN4 cells, torimochi has started to gain a specialized, germline-specific transcriptional activation system and thus can be used as a good model as a “young and still growing piRNA cluster.” We will include these data and discussion in the revised manuscript.

      In figure 1F, the positive control (P50T) is missing. Based on the description, this one should show a band, but doesn't or at least doesn't do very clearly. The authors need to repeat this assay.

      We agree that the P50T band was quite faint, although it was clearly present at the expected molecular size. We will repeat this assay with more PCR cycles so that the band will appear more clearly.

      The authors should perform a qPCR (or similar assay) on the different torimochi loci (and across different strains) to assess their individual transcriptional activity. Generally, showing that torimochi is an active transposable element is crucial to support the claim that it is still expanding.

      We have now re-analyzed our RNA-seq data to assess the individual transcriptional activity of different torimochi loci. We found that, as expected, torimochi mRNAs are a mixture of transcripts from various loci, just like torimochi-derived piRNAs. We will include these data in the revised manuscript.

      I would also recommend the authors to perform ping-pong analysis on all piRNAs mapping to torimochi. The hypothesis that torimochi acts as a piRNA cluster would be supported showing phased biogenesis, and a lack of a ping-pong signature (i.e., 10A). Please provide evidence that the piRNAs mapping to the different torimochi insertions are not produced via Post Transcriptional Gene Silencing.

      We would like to note that silkworms have no homolog of Drosophila Piwi, the PIWI protein that is specialized for the phased piRNA biogenesis pathway. Instead, silkworm Siwi participates in both the ping-pong pathway and the phased piRNA pathway (Izumi and Shoji et al., 2020). As expected, torimochi-derived piRNAs show both the ping-pong signature and the head-to-tail phasing signature in Trimmer knockout BmN4 cells. We would also like to note that, even in Drosophila, dual-strand piRNA clusters (e.g., 42AB) are known to show the ping-pong signature, while uni-strand piRNA clusters (e.g., flamenco) lack it (refs).

      Line 265; "Torimochi has the open chromatin structure and can trap foreign transgenes as well as endogenous transposons" - The evidence for "trapping" transposable elements is circumstantial. Transposons are known to insert into each other. One occasion of a transgene inserting in torimochi is not strong enough evidence to support the made claim.

      We appreciate the Reviewer’s concern. We would like to note that, in the previous paper (Kawaoka et al., 2009), the GFP transgene was inserted into torimochi (not once but) at least three times independently; there were three out of eight independent lines that contained the GFP transgene inserted into torimochi for piRNA-mediated silencing. This observation highlights the especially efficient “trapping” ability of torimochi. We will revise the text to clarify this point.

      Please provide a size distribution of all the piRNAs that are mapping on torimochi. In the methods section it is stated that small-RNAs of length 20-42 nt are mapped. This range is too generous as it also includes siRNA on the low end, and other ncRNAs on the long end. Please use the appropriate piRNA size range, i.e., 23-30 nt.

      We will be happy to include the size distribution data of all small RNAs mapped to torimochi, which shows that only 6% of them are siRNAs (~21 nt) and the majority (82%) of them can be considered as piRNAs (23–32 nt).

      Please include the sequences of the newly identified transposon families.

      We will be happy to determine the exact sequences of the newly identified transposons in BmN4 cells by PCR and Sanger sequencing and deposit them in a public database.

      Minor comments

      Line 71-72; "However, it was recently shown that these large piRNA clusters are evolutionarily labile and mostly dispensable for transposon suppression", this is misleading in the context of flamenco since flamenco is essential for transposon suppression. Please rephrase.

      We agree that flamenco is essential for transposon suppression in the somatic follicle cells in Drosophila, and we will rephase the sentence accordingly.

      Line 100; "Therefore, torimochi may serve as a model for young piRNA clusters, which are still "alive" and active in transposition, can trap other transposons, and produce de novo piRNAs.". It is unclear how this is evidenced? Would not any transposon be able to "trap" external sequences (e.g., PMID: 33347429). It is unclear to me how torimochi is different from any active transposon that is silenced by the piRNA pathway.

      As discussed above, our new data show that torimochi is not only a representative of transposons that have gained piRNA-producing activity in BmN4 cells but also a unique transposon that has started to gain a specialized transcriptional activation system as seen in well-established piRNA clusters in Drosophila. Therefore, we believe that torimochi will serve as a good model for young piRNA clusters.

      Line 117; "Therefore, torimochi is not a unique sequence in the genome but should be now interpreted as a gypsy-type transposon" - Even if there is one copy in the genome, torimochi could still is a transposable element.

      We agree that, even if there is one copy in the genome, it could still be a transposable element. We will change this part into "Therefore, torimochi is not a unique sequence in the genome as was thought in the past but should be now interpreted as a gypsy-type transposon with multiple copies in the genome".

      Line 133; "a presumed ancestor of Bombyx mori" - both species are extant, so none of them can be an ancestor of the other.

      Yes, Bombyx mandarina is also an extant species. We will change the wording to “a wild progenitor of Bombyx mori.”

      Line 135 Change "species" into "strains"?

      Yes, “strains” is appropriate and we will change it accordingly

      Please provide the coverage for every SNP in figures 2D and 2E. Having an idea of the coverage (i.e., how many reads support this SNP) would strengthen the conclusions made.

      We will add a Figure that shows the coverage of each SNPs at the top of the current Figure or as a Supplemental Figure.

      Supplementary figure 2I/J; The insert depiction of the GFP cassette is incorrect, it currently is displayed as a small vertical strip, whereas it should be a large block.

      We originally intended to show the situation around the GFP cassette for the sake of consistency with Supplemental Figure S2A–H. We will redraw this figure with including the GFP cassette.

      Methods: More details are needed on the computational analysis. Please include parameters used for different tools as well as custom scripts. Where multi-mappers used to quantify piRNAs across the torimochi insertions?

      We will include precise parameters used for different tools and upload our custom scripts on GitHub.

      Display of Supplementary Table 2 and Supplementary Table 3 partially obscured.

      We are sorry for the problems caused by the conversion. We will amend them.

      Introduction/discussion: I would suggest that the authors also discuss how torimochi could be mis-identified as a piRNA cluster previously.

      We will include the following statement to explain why torimochi was originally thought as a unique piRNA cluster in the genome. “The silkworm genome published in 2008 had many unassembled regions, which had masked two out of the three torimochi copies that we now found to exist in the p50T genome. In other words, the 2008 silkworm genome appeared as if there was only one region to which torimochi-derived piRNAs were mappable. Back then, the apparent difference in the chromosomal position of torimochi between BmN4 cells and silkworm ovaries was thought to be due to a large rearrangement of the corresponding genomic region.”

      CROSS-CONSULTATION COMMENTS

      Reviewer #2 raised three interesting points and the manuscript would be strengthened by addressing these.

      We will also fully address the three points raised by Reviewer #2.

      Reviewer #1 (Significance):

      Significance

      I find the topic both important and timely with the ongoing re-examination of whether piRNA clusters or dispersed euchromatic transposon insertions fuel the piRNA pathway. However, I feel that the current study on torimochi is relatively shallow and descriptive and does not take us much closer to resolving the issue. Re-examining the torimochi cluster is on its own of minor significance, since there are only five publications on torimochi since 2012. However, the current study has potential and torimochi could act as a model to study how piRNAs are produced.

      We are grateful to the Reviewer for recognizing the potential importance of our current study. All the comments by the Reviewer were of great help in significantly improving our manuscript. In particular, new Fig. 5 (related to Major Point #1) is an important addition to support the idea that torimochi is a young and still growing piRNA cluster, and we thank the Reviewer again for his/her constructive comments.

      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity):

      The author performed a straightforward of long read DNA sequencing data, which indicates that torimochi is not a single locus, but a gypsy-like LTR transposon that has massively expanded in BmN4 cells. The data are clear and convincing, and raise a number of interesting questions:

      1. The authors present data on single nucleotide polymorphisms in torimochi insertions (Figure 2), but the element can capture transgenes and produce silencing piRNAs. Does the long read data reveal capture of transposon insertions by any of the torimochi elements? Do any appear to be expanding due to recurrent insertion?

      In original Fig. S3A, we demonstrated that an endogenous transposon named mejiro is indeed inserted into the torimochi element . We plan to perform additional long read sequencing and further analyze the data to see if there are other examples of transposon capture events by any of the torimochi elements.

      1. The data indicate that torimochi is active and transcribed, but also the source of piRNAs that can silence transgenes. Why isn't torimochi silenced by piRNAs derived from the dispersed insertions?

      We believe that torimochi is indeed being silenced by piRNAs, but just not 100%. The GFP transgene trapped by torimochi was also not 100% silenced and some GFP signals were clearly detectable even in the silenced cell lines (Kawaoka et al., 2011). This must be also the case for any other transposons, although the silencing efficiency (the current result of the tug-of-war between transposons and the host’s piRNA system) should vary.

      1. Comparisons with the silkworm genome indicates that torimochi has been very active since BmN4 were isolated, and the element appears to active now, based on transcription. However, activation could have occurred when the cell line was established. If transposition is ongoing, BmN4 cells maintained as independent stock should have different insertions. This could be tested by sequence analysis of stocks from different labs. This experiment isn't essential to publication, but could be informative.

      We thank the Reviewer for raising this important point. Indeed, there exist BmN4 cells that have been independently maintained, and we have now obtained another stock of BmN4 cells from a different lab. We plan to perform long-read sequencing of genomic DNA using these cells to compare the insertion sites of torimochi. The results will allow us to determine whether activation of torimochi occurred when the cell line was established or its transposition is ongoing. Either result would be informative and helpful to further improve our manuscript.

      Reviewer #2 (Significance):

      piRNAs have a conserved role in transposon silencing. In many systems the most abundant piRNAs are derived from distinct chromosomal loci, termed clusters, that are composed of complex arrays of transposon fragments. Available data indicate that these loci can produce trans-silencing piRNAs, and the flam locus is required for fertility and silencing of Gyspsy transposons in flies. However, several major clusters, in flies and mice, are not required for fertility or transposon silencing, and dispersed mobile elements can produce piRNAs. The nature and function of piRNA source loci thus remains to be established. Shoji et al. address that nature of piRNA source loci through a reevaluation of the torimochi cluster In silkworm BmN4 cells. The authors show that torimochi is actually a gypsy-like LTR transposon that has massively expanded in BmN4 cells, and may represent an emerging piRNA clusters, falling between established clusters that look like “transposon graveyards”, and single euchromatic insertions that appear to have epigenetically converted to “mini-clusters”. The data raise a number of interesting questions, and should stimulate studies in other systems for similar elements.

      We are grateful to the Reviewer for precisely understanding the significance of our current study.

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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      The author performed a straightforward of long read DNA sequencing data, which indicates that torimochi is not a single locus, but a gypsy-like LTR transposon that has massively expanded in BmN4 cells. The data are clear and convincing, and raise a number of interesting questions:

      1. The authors present data on single nucleotide polymorphisms in torimochi insertions (Figure 2), but the element can capture transgenes and produce silencing piRNAs. Does the long read data reveal capture of transposon insertions by any of the torimochi elements? Do any appear to be expanding due to recurrent insertion?
      2. The data indicate that torimochi is active and transcribed, but also the source of piRNAs that can silence transgenes. Why isn't torimochi silenced by piRNAs derived from the dispersed insertions?
      3. Comparisons with the silkworm genome indicates that torimochi has been very active since BmN4 were isolated, and the element appears to active now, based on transcription. However, activation could have occurred when the cell line was established. If transposition is ongoing, BmN4 cells maintained as independent stock should have different insertions. This could be tested by sequence analysis of stocks from different labs. This experiment isn't essential to publication, but could be informative.

      Significance

      piRNAs have a conserved role in transposon silencing. In many systems the most abundant piRNAs are derived from distinct chromosomal loci, termed clusters, that are composed of complex arrays of transposon fragments. Available data indicate that these loci can produce trans-silencing piRNAs, and the flam locus is required for fertility and silencing of Gyspsy transposons in flies. However, several major clusters, in flies and mice, are not required for fertility or transposon silencing, and dispersed mobile elements can produce piRNAs. The nature and function of piRNA source loci thus remains to be established. Shoji et al. address that nature of piRNA source loci through a reevaluation of the torimochi cluster in silkworm BmN4 cells. The authors show that torimochi is actually a gypsy-like LTR transposon that has massively expanded in BmN4 cells, and may represent an emerging piRNA clusters, falling between established clusters that look like "transposon graveyards", and single euchromatic insertions that appear to have epigenetically converted to "mini-clusters". The data raise a number of interesting questions, and should stimulate studies in other systems for similar elements.

    3. Note: This preprint has been reviewed by subject experts for Review Commons. Content has not been altered except for formatting.

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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary

      PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) are required for transposon repression and are transcribed from discrete genomic loci termed piRNA clusters. Torimochi was identified as a piRNA cluster in silkworm in 2012, but the incomplete genome assembly hindered its further characterisation. Here, Shoji and colleagues characterised torimochi using the current, recently improved, genome assembly, combined with long-read (MinION) and Sanger sequencing. This reveals that torimochi is a regular Gypsy LTR transposon. Comparison of copy number across strains reveals that torimochi has been particularly active in the BmN4 cell line, showing different insertions between strains. Moreover, piRNAs are produced from multiple torimochi copies across the genome. Lastly, the authors show that torimochi has an open chromatin conformation. The authors propose that torimochi may be a young and still growing piRNA cluster, capable of both trapping other transposable elements and transgenes and of producing piRNAs.

      Major comments

      How are the torimochi-derived piRNAs produced? Which part of the piRNA pathway are required for their production? Determining this would significantly strengthen the study and potentially support the idea that torimochi is a "young and still growing piRNA cluster". Currently, it is unclear what evidence there is for torimochi acting as a piRNA cluster rather than a regular LTR transposon.

      In figure 1F, the positive control (P50T) is missing. Based on the description, this one should show a band, but doesn't or at least doesn't do very clearly. The authors need to repeat this assay.

      The authors should perform a qPCR (or similar assay) on the different torimochi loci (and across different strains) to assess their individual transcriptional activity. Generally, showing that torimochi is an active transposable element is crucial to support the claim that it is still expanding.

      I would also recommend the authors to perform ping-pong analysis on all piRNAs mapping to torimochi. The hypothesis that torimochi acts as a piRNA cluster would be supported showing phased biogenesis, and a lack of a ping-pong signature (i.e., 10A). Please provide evidence that the piRNAs mapping to the different torimochi insertions are not produced via Post Transcriptional Gene Silencing.

      Line 265; "Torimochi has the open chromatin structure and can trap foreign transgenes as well as endogenous transposons" - The evidence for "trapping" transposable elements is circumstantial. Transposons are known to insert into each other. One occasion of a transgene inserting in torimochi is not strong enough evidence to support the made claim.

      Please provide a size distribution of all the piRNAs that are mapping on torimochi. In the methods section it is stated that small-RNAs of length 20-42 nt are mapped. This range is too generous as it also includes siRNA on the low end, and other ncRNAs on the long end. Please use the appropriate piRNA size range, i.e., 23-30 nt.

      Please include the sequences of the newly identified transposon families.

      Minor comments

      Line 71-72; "However, it was recently shown that these large piRNA clusters are evolutionarily labile and mostly dispensable for transposon suppression", this is misleading in the context of flamenco since flamenco is essential for transposon suppression. Please rephrase.

      Line 100; "Therefore, torimochi may serve as a model for young piRNA clusters, which are still<br /> "alive" and active in transposition, can trap other transposons, and produce de novo piRNAs.". It is unclear how this is evidenced? Would not any transposon be able to "trap" external sequences (e.g., PMID: 33347429). It is unclear to me how torimochi is different from any active transposon that is silenced by the piRNA pathway.

      Line 117; "Therefore, torimochi is not a unique sequence in the genome but should be now interpreted as a gypsy-type transposon" - Even if there is one copy in the genome, torimochi could still is a transposable element.

      Line 133; "a presumed ancestor of Bombyx mori" - both species are extant, so none of them can be an ancestor of the other.

      Line 135 Change "species" into "strains"?

      Please provide the coverage for every SNP in figures 2D and 2E. Having an idea of the coverage (i.e., how many reads support this SNP) would strengthen the conclusions made.

      Supplementary figure 2I/J; The insert depiction of the GFP cassette is incorrect, it currently is displayed as a small vertical strip, whereas it should be a large block.

      Methods: More details are needed on the computational analysis. Please include parameters used for different tools as well as custom scripts. Where multi-mappers used to quantify piRNAs across the torimochi insertions?

      Display of Supplementary Table 2 and Supplementary Table 3 partially obscured.

      Introduction/discussion: I would suggest that the authors also discuss how torimochi could be mis-identified as a piRNA cluster previously.

      Referees cross-commenting

      Reviewer #2 raised three interesting points and the manuscript would be strengthened by addressing these.

      Significance

      I find the topic both important and timely with the ongoing re-examination of whether piRNA clusters or dispersed euchromatic transposon insertions fuel the piRNA pathway. However, I feel that the current study on torimochi is relatively shallow and descriptive and does not take us much closer to resolving the issue. Re-examining the torimochi cluster is on its own of minor significance, since there are only five publications on torimochi since 2012. However, the current study has potential and torimochi could act as a model to study how piRNAs are produced.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      1. General Statements [optional]

      The newly identified azyx-1 ORF was named peu-1 in the initial submission of this manuscript, a name that was under consideration with WormBase, who supervise nomenclature of C. elegans genes. In consultation with WormBase, the locus was named azyx-1 instead (the final decision being “azyx-1 will be attributed to F42G4.11. It will be released in WS287 at the beginning of 2023”). We updated this nomenclature in our submission files, including in reviewer comments pasted below. Please note that other than this, no changes whatsoever were made to the reviewer comments.

      2. Description of the planned revisions

      REV #3: Specific thoughts for consideration:

      Figure 5, Moderate is really minor/moderate with other metrics, and severe is definitely moderate with other metrics. Thus, I'm not sure if normal vs. moderate is needed. This really is a minor point as it doesn't impact results/overall story/importance.

      This was also pointed out by reviewer #1. We will rename classification more mildly so.

      REV #1 Fig. 5 Even the 'severe' muscle disruption is quite mild (say, in comparison to loss of talin). Perhaps rephrase these categories? The moderate and severe categories also do not look different to me. Show what the muscle cells look like in zyx-1 deletion and overexpression animals. Is there a way to use quantitative imaging to score these? Can azyx-1 phenotypes be rescued or enhanced by expression (or RNAi) of zyxin in the muscle? Also, clarify what age animals are being tested in the muscle and burrowing assay.

      We agree and will rename the classes in milder terms. Qualitative scoring (which was done blinded) is the standard in the field as was done according to Dhondt et al. (2021 Dis Model Mech). When tested for muscle integrity and burrowing capacity, animals were day 1 adults. This is mentioned in the Methods section of the current manuscript and will also be included in the captions of the revised figures.

      REV #2: I am not convinced by the data presented in Figure 5. There does not seem to be much to distinguish the five genotypes, but I concede that I am not used to looking at this type of data. But why was the muscle phenotype not also examined in the azyx-1 rescue lines?

      Because other reviewers that are familiar with these data point out that the observed differences of panels A-B are indeed milder that what is usually seen, we will rename classifications in the manuscript (see responses above). Because the azyx-1 deletion mutant does not differ from controls in the muscle phenotype, there is no phenotype to rescue for this readout, and no rescue strains were generated.

      We are not sure what the reviewer may struggle with in (assumedly) panel C (~‘to distinguish the five genotypes’). The positive control (zyx-1) behaves as expected in the burrowing assay, with our own mutants within that range, also as expected. All data were scored blinded to avoid any bias and statistical analysis supports the interpretations, all granting confidence to the observed differences. However, because reviewer#3 also would prefer another representation of the data shown in this panel (see below), we will provide an updated panel representation in the revised manuscript.

      REV #3: Figure 5C- Hard to read. Would displaying lines/tragectories make it easier to understand? Would displaying as violin plots for each timepoint/condition make it easier to visualize? Basically in black and white and in color this is hard to visually process.

      We will work on another representation for the revised manuscript, since reviewer2 also seemed to struggle with this panel representation.

      REV #1: Fig. S2 Match font sizes on Y-axes. Also, indicate any statistical differences and statistics used.

      Figure adjustments will be implemented in the revised manuscript as requested.

      REV#1: Fig. S3 C, indicate any statistical differences and statistics used.

      Figure adjustments will be implemented in the revised manuscript as requested.

      REV #2: I am not convinced by the "overexpression" experiments. These are not well controlled, since no evidence is presented that AZYX-1 is being overexpressed in these lines. Also, since we know that extrachromosomal transgenic lines are highly variable, one would need to test the effect of several independent lines to ensure that the effects that the authors observe are indeed associated with AZYX-1 overexpression and not simply an idiosyncratic effect of the genetic background of a given strain. Finally, there does not seem to be an obvious mechanism by which overexpression of AZYX-1 can impact ZYX-1 function. That doesn't rule out an effect, but based on the data as it is, it is premature to propose such a mechanism. The authors need to show that multiple overexpression lines do reproducibly overexpress AZYX-1 and that this results in reproducible effects of zyx-1 phenotypes.

      The extrachromosomal strains are indeed variable, but because the background is wild type (in contrast to a deletion mutant background for rescue strains), an overdose of the target provided is expected. As requested in the cross-consultation reviewer communication, we will include quantitative data in our revised manuscript that shows that the used strains (LSC1950, LSC1960, LSC2000) indeed are overexpressors.

      REV #2: The data presented in Figure 4F needs to be quantified using the same format as was presented in Figure 4B.

      Due to the different genetic background of the strains, this is not possible in the exact same way (the red signal of LSC1998 & LSC1999 is not unique to zyxin). We understand that in essence, the reviewer would like us to include a more quantitative representation of these data, and will update the figure accordingly.

      REV #2: What is the difference between the overexpression transgenic lines and the "rescuing" transgenic lines? In the Materials and Methods, the same concentration of plasmid was used in injections - so these likely give the same approximate level of transgenic expression.

      The genetic background: a rescue line adds wt DNA back to a mutant background, while in an OE strain it is added into a wt background. While this can already be derived from the genotype details in Supplemental Table S1, we apologize for not specifying this in the methods section, as it is common practice in the field. These specifications will be added to the revised manuscript.

      REV #2: I am not clear what features are being used to characterise the myofibril structures into the three categories. Can the authors annotate the images to indicate the diagnostic features?

      The reviewer is correct that manual classification is rather poorly defined in general, which is why it is scored blinded (here as per Cothren et al., 2018 Bio Protoc). We adhered to the reference images by Dhondt et al. (2021, Dis Mod Mech) with visual assessment based on how tightly organized (~parallel) myofilaments are organized, assessing overall increases of bends or breaks in individual myofibers as leading to a less aligned pattern (cf. Fig. 1 of Dhondt et al.). We will add this information more explicitly to the Methods section of the revised manuscript.

      3. Description of the revisions that have already been incorporated in the transferred manuscript

      REV #1: Fig. 4 would be better if the control (A) and azyx-1OE (B) worms were more similar in age and size

      The panels of this figure were not to the exact same scale, we apologize if the reviewer found this confusing. We have rescaled the panels so that this is less confusing. The animals are all day 1 adults.

      REV #1: Abstract: Clarify what is meant by 'putative syntenic conservation' or rephrase, simply stating that the existence of an ORF overlapping with the 5' region of zyxin is conserved

      This has been rephrased according to request.

      REV #1: Line 24: Clarify these are synthetic phenotypes (not caused by loss of zyx-1/azyx-1 alone). Loss of zyx-1 alone results in very mild phenotypes.

      While the original sentence already pointed this out, we rephrased the text to make clear that these observations require the dystrophic mutant background.

      REV #1: Line 28: Start new paragraph

      The new paragraph was started a sentence earlier, according to rev#2 request.

      REV #1: Line 31: Not clear what is meant by 'post-transcriptional regulation can be further propagated'- maybe reword to 'alternative and overlapping open reading frames (ORFs) arising from polycistronic mRNA can regulate translation' or something simpler like that.

      This has been rephrased according to request.

      REV #1: Line 56-57: Is this because most C. elegans transcripts start with the splice leader SL1 or SL2 rather than the adjacent 5' sequence? Is that relevant for zyx-1? Recommend commenting briefly on this.

      We did not look into this for all possible u(o)ORFs in C. elegans, which also is not the focus of the manuscript, so we cannot make general statements. As part of the annotation procedure of azyx‑1, WormBase verified that indeed several pieces of evidence, including available phyloCSF data for exon 1, SL1s, RNASeq and Nanopore data, all support its annotation, as well as its translation from the zyx-1 long transcripts (albeit with different start and in different reading frame).

      REV #1: Line 78: Delete the word 'other'

      Done

      REV #1: Line 122: zyx-1

      Done

      REV #1: Line 137: 'lead' should be 'led'

      Done

      REV #1: Line 158: rephrase 'only the long ones' to indicate which isoforms more precisely

      Done (these are a/e, cf. Luo et al. 2014, Development)

      REV #1: Line 195: Rephrase. Unclear what is meant by 'highlights the evasiveness of non-canonical ORFs from functional annotation'

      Done; this was rephrased to “This exemplifies how non-canonical ORFs can escape functional annotation, …”.

      REV #1: Various locations: I think it will be more clear to the reader to consistently refer to the burrowing assay as 'burrowing assay' rather than chemotaxis. I recommend adding a brief description of the burrowing assay to the results section.

      Wording has been updated, we can provide a short context sentence to the results section of the revised manuscript.

      REV #2: I'm not sure how to interpret the significance of the u/ouORFs across short and large phylogenetic distances. One would presume that there might not be primary amino acid conservation if the regulation simply takes by interference with ribosome scanning and translocation. Here some statistical analysis would help with assessing the significance of these observations. How unusual is it to find u/uoORFs in the 5' UTRs of gene encoding zyxin family members versus in general for the species analysed?

      This is indeed the very question we are asking in the manuscript, and there is a clear reason why we refrain from making significance statements. At the moment, all relevant available metadata are used for the analysis in the manuscript, leading to the communication of the synteny-related findings as they are currently presented. This is due to the dependency on translatomics data to find credible u(o)ORFs, and there aren’t very many translatomics datasets available, only for a limited set of species so far. Our manuscript contains all relevant OpenProt data, which are derived from only 9 animal species so far. As shown in Table S4, 14 zyxin orthologs belonging to 7 species have associated u(o)ORFS, for two species only overlapping ORFs are present in the database. While more and more datasets will undoubtedly become available in the next years, the findings in the manuscript are as complete as currently possible: we do find evidence of u(o)ORFs associated with zyxin orthologs in these species, some of which are evolutionarily distantly related to C. elegans.

      REV #2: The authors state that there is evidence for synteny and coding region conservation. The data supporting this assertion is not well presented. Presentation and analysis of multiple sequence alignments of the putative homologues involved would strengthen the assertion of synteny considerably.

      We apologize if the reviewer misunderstood: we discuss likely syntenic conservation, not coding region conservation. The latter is not mentioned in our manuscript, and in fact not convincing indeed. This is not surprising given the bigger sequence diversity observed at the N terminus of zyxins and the partial overlap of these coding sequences, and in line with observations of several others in the RiboSeq community that many identified uORFs are conserved between orthologous genes, but poorly conserved at the amino acid level (e.g. community-driven communication by Mudge et al., BioRxiv 2021 and references therein).

      REV #2: The authors are oddly coy about the molecular details of the 27 bp deletion used to study the loss of azyx-1 function. In the absence of these details, it is not possible to assess the validity of these experiments. We need to be given the full molecular details of the allele - precisely which nucleotides are deleted? And how do they affect the coding regions of zyx-1 and azyx-1?

      I am also confused about why the authors made a deletion allele rather than mutating the AUG of AZYX-1? This would be a cleaner experiment to interpret. Based on the data presented, there are two possible interpretations in addition to the one suggested by the authors: 1) the 27 bp deletion impacts zyx-1 expression due to its impact on the zyx-1 coding region (the coding regions of azyx-1 and zyx-1 overlap); 2) the deletion mutation deletes critical transcriptional control elements. A simpler mutation of the azyx-1 AUG via CRISPR might allow them to rule out the possibility that they have simply compromised a transcriptional control element or damaged the coding region of ZYX-1.

      As mentioned above and as will be included more clearly so in the revised manuscript: the deletion is 182-155bp (27bp) upstream of the zyx-1a start site. This was a mutant that could easily be generated via CRISPR, so we proceeded with this one. This edit rules out option1 (there is no change of the zyxin coding region), but (as also considered but addressed differently in the manuscript; see below) retains alternative interpretation 2. There are no regulatory regions or transcription factor binding sites known for the (a)zyx-1 locus (verified in current WormBase version WS285), but that does certainly not fully rule out the possibility either. Rather than creating a series of azyx-1 mutants, be they SNP or small deletion mutants, that would suffer from the exact same duality in possible interpretation, we chose to combine the deletion mutant with rescue and overexpression strains. Because these latter strains do not affect the endogenous zyxin regulatory region, they add far more credibility to the interpretation, than alternative mutants in the azyx-1/zyx-1 locus would.

      REV#2. The narrative flow of the introduction could be improved by the judicious use of paragraphs. Line 12, for instance is a clear paragraph break, as is line 24.

      Done

      REV #3: Specific thoughts for consideration:<br /> 3) Could more be said about overlapping genes/regulation in humans? Again, not critical but this is such a great piece of work that it would be useful to guide human subjects researchers as to how to best further your work.

      It is unclear whether the reviewer would like to see an extended introduction and/or discussion. We tried to meet this request without drifting too much from the focus of our current communication by adding the following to the introduction (lines 41-47 of the current draft): “From a more human-centred future perspective, uORFs are a rather unexplored niche for translational research: with a predicted prevalence in over 50% of human genes and first examples regulating translation of disease-associated genes already emerging (Lee et al. 2021; Schulz et al. 2018), the field is bound to not only lead to more fundamental, but also application-oriented insights. Keeping this broader context in mind, we here focus on more fundamental principles of uORFs in a model organism context.”.

      4. Description of analyses that authors prefer not to carry out

      REV#1: Does azyx-1 have zyx-1-independent functions or other regulatory targets?

      This is an interesting question that is not yet addressed. While this is possible, it is beyond the scope of our current communication. Since the reviewer does not request anything concrete, we would prefer to leave this for follow-up research. While this notion is included in the manuscript, we are happy to more explicitly address this question in the discussion as well.

      REV#1: Do the burrowing assay results reflect a neuronal or a muscle function for AZYX-1? Or both?

      Our manuscript indeed does not yet delve into tissue-specific actions of this newly discovered ORF. While interesting, and in line with reviewer #3’s remark, this would be valuable for follow-up research, but is beyond the scope of our current communication. We will make sure the concept is clearly mentioned in the discussion of our findings.

      REV #3: Specific thoughts for consideration:

      Could more be done/said about neruo vs, muscular effects of azyx-1 and zyx-1. I appreciate this is beyond the scope of the present manuscript and therefore does not require response if you don't have data or it makes telling the story you want to tell more difficult.

      We agree with the reviewer that spatially resolving some of these observations would be a next interesting step, which indeed is beyond the scope of our current communication.

      REV#1: Fig. 2A very faint, increase brightness/contrast?

      We did not adjust brightness or contrast for any of the figures, an no such requests were made by other reviewers. We greatly prefer presenting the data as unedited as possible, and would like to request the journal’s preference for action here.

      5. Remaining reviewer comments & responses not highlighted above

      CROSS-CONSULTATION COMMENTS<br /> _The following is a conversation among the three referees:<br /> _REFEREE #2: I appear to be the dissenting voice in terms of concern about the details of the 27 bp deletion and the "overexpression" constructs. I would be interested to know your opinions regarding my comments on these issues.<br /> REFEREE #1: I think adding the details of the 27 bp deletion is a reasonable request. It is probably not possible to disambiguate entirely the two effects of the deletion, and changing the start codon may result in an alternate start with other downstream effects. I think just explaining it more fully in the methods would satisfy my concerns.<br /> REFEREE #2: What about the issues with the overexpresssion? In my experience, presence of multicopy transgenes on an extrachromosomal arrays might not lead to over expression of the gene involved? This needs to be verified in some way.<br /> REFEREE #1: You are right about that. If the construct is tagged in some way they could try a western. I would recommend they integrate the transgenes, or just show results from several lines as you suggest.<br /> REFEREE #3: I agree the 27 bp deletion and over expression are reasonable technical issues. However, I view this a techical details vs. critical details for the novel regulatory mechanism. The point about ability to judge conservation is also reasonable but until the theory is firmly out there it is hard to test the conservation and broader applicability to other genes/proteins. Thus, while asking for additional information on these issues is reasonable I do not see the inability to address beyond highlighting as limitation in the text as critical to the overall validity of the work.<br /> REFEREE #2: I disagree with Reviewer #3, without knowing the details of 27 bp deletion the most reasonable interpretation of the data is simply that it is a loss-of-function allele of zyx-1. This goes beyond "technical" - at present there is no unequivocal evidence that azyx-1 has any functional significance beyond that it is expressed as a peptide.<br /> REFEREE #3: I've been back through the manuscript. They have sequenced the deletion and therefore should be able to provide that information to satisfy the issue(s). For the over expression, short of silencing my experience is that they do over express and when you have multiple lines some express more than others (and some silence more than others). If you want evidence that the peptide is over expressed ask them to quantify via mass spec if it isn't tagged and they can't do a Western. Clearly they have work leading expertise in quantitative mass spec proteomics in C. elegans and should be able to do that. Generally speaking, rescue of a deletion is a pretty good sign that the expression is working though (and is an accepted standard).

      We apologize if this was not clear from the manuscript, and will clearly include the details in the Methods section: the deletion is 182-155bp (27bp) upstream of the zyx-1a start site, at AT|G+26|TTC. This was confirmed by sequencing; the oligos used for this are listed in table S3 of the manuscript. We address the confusion of rescue and overexpression above, in response to reviewer #2 (who echoes this confusion here).

      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity):

      **This is a very interesting paper about a gene regulatory mechanism in a type of poly-cistronic mRNA in which alternate starts/open reading frames lead to production of two different proteins from the same locus. AZYX-1 is a predicted 166 aa protein, translated from the 5'UTR of zyx-1. Two isoforms are expressed from the 5' UTR and coding region of zyx-1. The presence of overlapping transcripts with zyxin orthologs appears to be conserved in other animals. The authors provide spectroscopic evidence AZYX-1 is indeed translated, and show AZYX-1 can regulate zyx-1 expression. Intriguingly, it seems azyx-1 inhibits zyx-1 expression in cis (deletion of azyx-1 increases ZYX-1 peptides), but AZYX-1 promotes zyx-1 expression in trans (overexpression of AZYX-1 increases ZYX-1 expression).

      Reviewer #1 (Significance):

      Nature and significance of the advance: This is a very interesting paper about a gene regulatory mechanism in a type of poly-cistronic mRNA encoding azyx-1 and zyx-1. Intriguingly, it seems azyx-1 inhibits zyx-1 expression in cis (deletion of azyx-1 increases ZYX-1 peptides), but AZYX-1 promotes zyx-1 expression in trans (overexpression of AZYX-1 increases ZYX-1 expression).

      Compare to existing published knowledge: This is the first study of its type on zyx-1.

      Audience: Those interested in gene regulatory mechanisms and in zyxin.

      My expertise: C. elegans cytoskeleton, cell migration, acto-myosin contractility.

      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity):

      **Summary:<br /> The authors build on previous work defining upstream and upstream-overlapping open reading frames (uORF and uoORFs, respectively) by focussing on a specific locus azyx-1, which the authors propose influences the expression of the gene encoding the sole zyxin family in C. elegans, zyx-1. They present evidence suggestive of u/uoORFs being a common feature of zyxin family genes in other animals, hinting that perhaps this is a conserved mechanism of gene expression regulation for these genes. In which case, studies in C. elegans would be valuable to elucidate the mechanism involved.<br /> Using a fluorescent reporter strategy, they show that azyx-1 is expressed in the same tissues as zyx-1, which is to be expected since their share the same transcriptional control elements.<br /> They also characterise the peptide steady state levels of both ZYX-1 and AZYX-1 isoforms, suggesting that while overall ZYX-1 levels decline with age, those for AZYX-1 are generally maintained. The significance of these observations was not immediately obvious to me - a priori it is difficult to assess what relative wild type steady-state levels one might expect if AZYX-1 translation impacted ZYX-1 expression.<br /> The authors propose that expression of AZYX-1 leads to inhibition of ZYX-1 translation through the standard model by which u/uoORFs impact translation of downstream ORFs. To test this, they generated a 27 bp deletion "at the beginning of the azyx-1 ORF". This deletion clearly correlated with a reduction in ZYX-1 expression.<br /> Finally, the authors generated lines designed to overexpress AZYX-1, testing the hypothesis that AZYX-1 might influence ZYX-1 in trans. Though here, it is not obvious by what mechanism this might operate, and the effect-sizes involved are modest.

      Reviewer #2 (Significance):

      The authors propose an interesting interaction between an important regulator of cellular behaviour (zyxin) and the u/uoORF that potentially regulates its expression - if validated by further experimentation, this would add to the growing evidence for the importance of the 5' UTR as a source of gene regulatory activity. Such regulation is well described in yeast, but there are fewer examples in animals, particularly in genetically tractable systems such as C. elegans. The work would primarily be of interest to researchers interested in understanding the spectrum of such activity in C. elegans. My own area of expertise, RNA-splicing and the post-transcriptional regulation of C. elegans gene expression, is not directly related to the research presented in the manuscript, but I am familiar with the general concepts and developments involved.

      Reviewer #3 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity):

      Summary:<br /> The authors find that azyx-1 is a non-cononical gene with overlapping genomic localization to the gene zyx-1 in C. elegans. The authors also find preliminary evidence that similar genes with overlapping localization to zyxin genes exist in other species. The authors provide evidence for the tissue specific distribution of azyx-1 expression. The authors further provide evidence for azyx-1 and zyx-1 expression with age. Importantly, these data demonstrate differences in azyx-1 and zyx-1 protein products biological importance/relevance as they display differences with age. The authors provide evidence that azyx-1 expression influences zyx-1 expression in multiple ways. Lastly, the authors demonstrate that azyx-1 expression influences muscle structure and neuromuscular function. The authors use a combination of bioinformatic, protein biochemistry, genetic/transgenic, histologic, and physiologic methods to make these points. With regards to methods, the range/breadth is impressive and appropriate. In many ways the manuscript it is a tour de force in modern molecular biology with a focus on translational medicine. With regards to species, the in vivo experiments are solely C. elegans but the computational data include Fly, Bull, and Mouse.

      The key conclusions are convincing. There are no major claims that require qualification as preliminary or speculative. No additional experiments are essential to support the claims of the paper. The data and methods are presented in such a way that they can be reproduced. The experiments are adequately replicated and the statistical analysis is adequate.

      Prior studies are references appropriately. The text and figures are mostly clear and accurate.

      We would like to thank the reviewer for their appreciation of our efforts and research approach.

      Reviewer #3 (Significance):

      **Conceptually this is a massive/ground breaking piece of work. Essentially, the authors are demonstrating a novel mechanism of regulation of gene/protein expression that, really, hasn't been reported before. What is particularly notable is that it appears, unsurprisingly, as correctly stated by the authors, to be evolutionarily conserved and not well reported in the literature. As with many classical molecular biology papers, and the more recent (e.g. RNAi, lncRNA) genetic papers, this manuscript hold the promise of transforming biology/medicine. The range of methods employed and the linking of molecular biology to pathophysiology was impressive. The audience that will be interested in this work includes: geneticists, proteomics researchers, evolutionary researchers, molecular biologists, physiologists, ageing researchers, muscle researchers, and muscle disease researchers. Thus, the interested audience is broad. My field of expertise with regards to this manuscript is: C. elegans, Mass Spec, Proteomics, genomic regulation, genetics, transgenics, histology, muscle, and physiology. There are no parts of this manuscript that I do not feel I have insufficient expertise to evaluate. I congratulate the authors on a highly significant, cross disciplinary, manuscript, that should impact multiple sub-areas of biology.

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      Referee #3

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary:

      The authors find that peu-1 is a non-cononical gene with overlapping genomic localization to the gene zyx-1 in C. elegans. The authors also find preliminary evidence that similar genes with overlapping localization to zyxin genes exist in other species. The authors provide evidence for the tissue specific distribution of peu-1 expression. The authors further provide evidence for peu-1 and zyx-1 expression with age. Importantly, these data demonstrate differences in peu-1 and zyx-1 protein products biological importance/relevance as they display differences with age. The authors provide evidence that peu-1 expression influences zyx-1 expression in multiple ways. Lastly, the authors demonstrate that peu-1 expression influences muscle structure and neuromuscular function. The authors use a combination of bioinformatic, protein biochemistry, genetic/transgenic, histologic, and physiologic methods to make these points. With regards to methods, the range/breadth is impressive and appropriate. In many ways the manuscript it is a tour de force in modern molecular biology with a focus on translational medicine. With regards to species, the in vivo experiments are solely C. elegans but the computational data include Fly, Bull, and Mouse.

      Major comments:

      The key conclusions are convincing. There are no major claims that require qualification as preliminary or speculative. No additional experiments are essential to support the claims of the paper. The data and methods are presented in such a way that they can be reproduced. The experiments are adequately replicated and the statistical analysis is adequate.

      Minor comments:

      Prior studies are references appropriately. The text and figures are mostly clear and accurate.<br /> Specific thoughts for improvement:<br /> Figure 5C- Hard to read. Would displaying lines/tragectories make it easier to understand? Would displaying as violin plots for each timepoint/condition make it easier to visualize? Basically in black and white and in color this is hard to visually process.<br /> Specific thoughts for consideration:

      1. Could more be done/said about neruo vs, muscular effects of peu-1 and zyx-1. I appreciate this is beyond the scope of the present manuscript and therefore does not require response if you don't have data or it makes telling the story you want to tell more difficult.
      2. Figure 5, Moderate is really minor/moderate with other metrics, and severe is definitely moderate with other metrics. Thus, I'm not sure if normal vs. moderate is needed. This really is a minor point as it doesn't impact results/overall story/importance.
      3. Could more be said about overlapping genes/regulation in humans? Again, not critical but this is such a great piece of work that it would be useful to guide human subjects researchers as to how to best further your work.

      Referees cross-commenting

      The following is a conversation among the three referees:

      REFEREE #2: I appear to be the dissenting voice in terms of concern about the details of the 27 bp deletion and the "overexpression" constructs. I would be interested to know your opinions regarding my comments on these issues.

      REFEREE #1: I think adding the details of the 27 bp deletion is a reasonable request. It is probably not possible to disambiguate entirely the two effects of the deletion, and changing the start codon may result in an alternate start with other downstream effects. I think just explaining it more fully in the methods would satisfy my concerns.

      REFEREE #2: What about the issues with the overexpresssion? In my experience, presence of multicopy transgenes on an extrachromosomal arrays might not lead to over expression of the gene involved? This needs to be verified in some way.

      REFEREE #1: You are right about that. If the construct is tagged in some way they could try a western. I would recommend they integrate the transgenes, or just show results from several lines as you suggest.

      REFEREE #3: I agree the 27 bp deletion and over expression are reasonable technical issues. However, I view this a techical details vs. critical details for the novel regulatory mechanism. The point about ability to judge conservation is also reasonable but until the theory is firmly out there it is hard to test the conservation and broader applicability to other genes/proteins. Thus, while asking for additional information on these issues is reasonable I do not see the inability to address beyond highlighting as limitation in the text as critical to the overall validity of the work.

      REFEREE #2: I disagree with Reviewer #3, without knowing the details of 27 bp deletion the most reasonable interpretation of the data is simply that it is a loss-of-function allele of zyx-1. This goes beyond "technical" - at present there is no unequivocal evidence that peu-1 has any functional significance beyond that it is expressed as a peptide.

      REFEREE #3: I've been back through the manuscript. They have sequenced the deletion and therefore should be able to provide that information to satisfy the issue(s). For the over expression, short of silencing my experience is that they do over express and when you have multiple lines some express more than others (and some silence more than others). If you want evidence that the peptide is over expressed ask them to quantify via mass spec if it isn't tagged and they can't do a Western. Clearly they have work leading expertise in quantitative mass spec proteomics in C. elegans and should be able to do that. Generally speaking, rescue of a deletion is a pretty good sign that the expression is working though (and is an accepted standard).

      Significance

      Conceptually this is a massive/ground breaking piece of work. Essentially, the authors are demonstrating a novel mechanism of regulation of gene/protein expression that, really, hasn't been reported before. What is particularly notable is that it appears, unsurprisingly, as correctly stated by the authors, to be evolutionarily conserved and not well reported in the literature. As with many classical molecular biology papers, and the more recent (e.g. RNAi, lncRNA) genetic papers, this manuscript hold the promise of transforming biology/medicine. The range of methods employed and the linking of molecular biology to pathophysiology was impressive. The audience that will be interested in this work includes: geneticists, proteomics researchers, evolutionary researchers, molecular biologists, physiologists, ageing researchers, muscle researchers, and muscle disease researchers. Thus, the interested audience is broad. My field of expertise with regards to this manuscript is: C. elegans, Mass Spec, Proteomics, genomic regulation, genetics, transgenics, histology, muscle, and physiology. There are no parts of this manuscript that I do not feel I have insufficient expertise to evaluate. I congratulate the authors on a highly significant, cross disciplinary, manuscript, that should impact multiple sub-areas of biology.

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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary:

      The authors build on previous work defining upstream and upstream-overlapping open reading frames (uORF and uoORFs, respectively) by focussing on a specific locus peu-1, which the authors propose influences the expression of the gene encoding the sole zyxin family in C. elegans, zyx-1. They present evidence suggestive of u/uoORFs being a common feature of zyxin family genes in other animals, hinting that perhaps this is a conserved mechanism of gene expression regulation for these genes. In which case, studies in C. elegans would be valuable to elucidate the mechanism involved.<br /> Using a fluorescent reporter strategy, they show that peu-1 is expressed in the same tissues as zyx-1, which is to be expected since their share the same transcriptional control elements.<br /> They also characterise the peptide steady state levels of both ZYX-1 and PEU-1 isoforms, suggesting that while overall ZYX-1 levels decline with age, those for PEU-1 are generally maintained. The significance of these observations was not immediately obvious to me - a priori it is difficult to assess what relative wild type steady-state levels one might expect if PEU-1 translation impacted ZYX-1 expression.<br /> The authors propose that expression of PEU-1 leads to inhibition of ZYX-1 translation through the standard model by which u/uoORFs impact translation of downstream ORFs. To test this, they generated a 27 bp deletion "at the beginning of the peu-1 ORF". This deletion clearly correlated with a reduction in ZYX-1 expression.<br /> Finally, the authors generated lines designed to overexpress PEU-1, testing the hypothesis that PEU-1 might influence ZYX-1 in trans. Though here, it is not obvious by what mechanism this might operate, and the effect-sizes involved are modest.

      Major comments:

      1. I'm not sure how to interpret the significance of the u/ouORFs across short and large phylogenetic distances. One would presume that there might not be primary amino acid conservation if the regulation simply takes by interference with ribosome scanning and translocation. Here some statistical analysis would help with assessing the significance of these observations. How unusual is it to find u/uoORFs in the 5' UTRs of gene encoding zyxin family members versus in general for the species analysed?
      2. The authors state that there is evidence for synteny and coding region conservation. The data supporting this assertion is not well presented. Presentation and analysis of multiple sequence alignments of the putative homologues involved would strengthen the assertion of synteny considerably.
      3. The authors are oddly coy about the molecular details of the 27 bp deletion used to study the loss of peu-1 function. In the absence of these details, it is not possible to assess the validity of these experiments. We need to be given the full molecular details of the allele - precisely which nucleotides are deleted? And how do they affect the coding regions of zyx-1 and peu-1?<br /> I am also confused about why the authors made a deletion allele rather than mutating the AUG of PEU-1? This would be a cleaner experiment to interpret. Based on the data presented, there are two possible interpretations in addition to the one suggested by the authors: 1) the 27 bp deletion impacts zyx-1 expression due to its impact on the zyx-1 coding region (the coding regions of peu-1 and zyx-1 overlap); 2) the deletion mutation deletes critical transcriptional control elements. A simpler mutation of the peu-1 AUG via CRISPR might allow them to rule out the possibility that they have simply compromised a transcriptional control element or damaged the coding region of ZYX-1.
      4. I am not convinced by the "overexpression" experiments. These are not well controlled, since no evidence is presented that PEU-1 is being overexpressed in these lines. Also, since we know that extrachromosomal transgenic lines are highly variable, one would need to test the effect of several independent lines to ensure that the effects that the authors observe are indeed associated with PEU-1 overexpression and not simply an idiosyncratic effect of the genetic background of a given strain. Finally, there does not seem to be an obvious mechanism by which overexpression of PEU-1 can impact ZYX-1 function. That doesn't rule out an effect, but based on the data as it is, it is premature to propose such a mechanism. The authors need to show that multiple overexpression lines do reproducibly overexpress PEU-1 and that this results in reproducible effects of zyx-1 phenotypes.
      5. I am not convinced by the data presented in Figure 5. There does not seem to be much to distinguish the five genotypes, but I concede that I am not used to looking at this type of data. But why was the muscle phenotype not also examined in the peu-1 rescue lines?

      Minor comments:

      1. The narrative flow of the introduction could be improved by the judicious use of paragraphs. Line 12, for instance is a clear paragraph break, as is line 24.
      2. The data presented in Figure 4F needs to be quantified using the same format as was presented in Figure 4B.
      3. I am not clear what features are being used to characterise the myofibril structures into the three categories. Can the authors annotate the images to indicate the diagnostic features?
      4. What is the difference between the overexpression transgenic lines and the "rescuing" transgenic lines? In the Materials and Methods, the same concentration of plasmid was used in injections - so these likely give the same approximate level of transgenic expression.

      Referees cross-commenting

      The following is a conversation among the three referees:

      REFEREE #2: I appear to be the dissenting voice in terms of concern about the details of the 27 bp deletion and the "overexpression" constructs. I would be interested to know your opinions regarding my comments on these issues.

      REFEREE #1: I think adding the details of the 27 bp deletion is a reasonable request. It is probably not possible to disambiguate entirely the two effects of the deletion, and changing the start codon may result in an alternate start with other downstream effects. I think just explaining it more fully in the methods would satisfy my concerns.

      REFEREE #2: What about the issues with the overexpresssion? In my experience, presence of multicopy transgenes on an extrachromosomal arrays might not lead to over expression of the gene involved? This needs to be verified in some way.

      REFEREE #1: You are right about that. If the construct is tagged in some way they could try a western. I would recommend they integrate the transgenes, or just show results from several lines as you suggest.

      REFEREE #3: I agree the 27 bp deletion and over expression are reasonable technical issues. However, I view this a techical details vs. critical details for the novel regulatory mechanism. The point about ability to judge conservation is also reasonable but until the theory is firmly out there it is hard to test the conservation and broader applicability to other genes/proteins. Thus, while asking for additional information on these issues is reasonable I do not see the inability to address beyond highlighting as limitation in the text as critical to the overall validity of the work.

      REFEREE #2: I disagree with Reviewer #3, without knowing the details of 27 bp deletion the most reasonable interpretation of the data is simply that it is a loss-of-function allele of zyx-1. This goes beyond "technical" - at present there is no unequivocal evidence that peu-1 has any functional significance beyond that it is expressed as a peptide.

      REFEREE #3: I've been back through the manuscript. They have sequenced the deletion and therefore should be able to provide that information to satisfy the issue(s). For the over expression, short of silencing my experience is that they do over express and when you have multiple lines some express more than others (and some silence more than others). If you want evidence that the peptide is over expressed ask them to quantify via mass spec if it isn't tagged and they can't do a Western. Clearly they have work leading expertise in quantitative mass spec proteomics in C. elegans and should be able to do that. Generally speaking, rescue of a deletion is a pretty good sign that the expression is working though (and is an accepted standard).

      Significance

      The authors propose an interesting interaction between an important regulator of cellular behaviour (zyxin) and the u/uoORF that potentially regulates its expression - if validated by further experimentation, this would add to the growing evidence for the importance of the 5' UTR as a source of gene regulatory activity. Such regulation is well described in yeast, but there are fewer examples in animals, particularly in genetically tractable systems such as C. elegans. The work would primarily be of interest to researchers interested in understanding the spectrum of such activity in C. elegans. My own area of expertise, RNA-splicing and the post-transcriptional regulation of C. elegans gene expression, is not directly related to the research presented in the manuscript, but I am familiar with the general concepts and developments involved.

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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      This is a very interesting paper about a gene regulatory mechanism in a type of poly-cistronic mRNA in which alternate starts/open reading frames lead to production of two different proteins from the same locus. PEU-1 is a predicted 166 aa protein, translated from the 5'UTR of zyx-1. Two isoforms are expressed from the 5' UTR and coding region of zyx-1. The presence of overlapping transcripts with zyxin orthologs appears to be conserved in other animals. The authors provide spectroscopic evidence PEU-1 is indeed translated, and show PEU-1 can regulate zyx-1 expression. Intriguingly, it seems peu-1 inhibits zyx-1 expression in cis (deletion of peu-1 increases ZYX-1 peptides), but PEU-1 promotes zyx-1 expression in trans (overexpression of PEU-1 increases ZYX-1 expression).

      Does peu-1 have zyx-1-independent functions or other regulatory targets?

      Fig. 4 would be better if the control (A) and peu-1OE (B) worms were more similar in age and size

      Fig. 5 Even the 'severe' muscle disruption is quite mild (say, in comparison to loss of talin). Perhaps rephrase these categories? The moderate and severe categories also do not look different to me. Show what the muscle cells look like in zyx-1 deletion and overexpression animals.<br /> Is there a way to use quantitative imaging to score these? Can peu-1 phenotypes be rescued or enhanced by expression (or RNAi) of zyxin in the muscle? Also, clarify what age animals are being tested in the muscle and burrowing assay.

      Do the burrowing assay results reflect a neuronal or a muscle function for PEU-1? Or both?

      Minor

      Abstract: Clarify what is meant by 'putative syntenic conservation' or rephrase, simply stating that the existence of an ORF overlapping with the 5' region of zyxin is conserved

      Line 24: Clarify these are synthetic phenotypes (not caused by loss of zyx-1/peu-1 alone). Loss of zyx-1 alone results in very mild phenotypes.

      Line 28: Start new paragraph

      Line 31: Not clear what is meant by 'post-transcriptional regulation can be further propagated'- maybe reword to 'alternative and overlapping open reading frames (ORFs) arising from polycistronic mRNA can regulate translation' or something simpler like that.

      Line 56-57: Is this because most C. elegans transcripts start with the splice leader SL1 or SL2 rather than the adjacent 5' sequence? Is that relevant for zyx-1? Recommend commenting briefly on this.

      Line 78: Delete the word 'other'

      Fig. 2A very faint, increase brightness/contrast?

      Line 122: zyx-1

      Line 137: 'lead' should be 'led'

      Line 158: rephrase 'only the long ones' to indicate which isoforms more precisely

      Line 195: Rephrase. Unclear what is meant by 'highlights the evasiveness of non-canonical ORFs from functional annotation'

      Various locations: I think it will be more clear to the reader to consistently refer to the burrowing assay as 'burrowing assay' rather than chemotaxis. I recommend adding a brief description of the burrowing assay to the results section.

      Fig. S2 Match font sizes on Y-axes. Also, indicate any statistical differences and statistics used.

      Fig. S3 C, indicate any statistical differences and statistics used.

      Referees cross-commenting

      The following is a conversation among the three referees:

      REFEREE #2: I appear to be the dissenting voice in terms of concern about the details of the 27 bp deletion and the "overexpression" constructs. I would be interested to know your opinions regarding my comments on these issues.

      REFEREE #1: I think adding the details of the 27 bp deletion is a reasonable request. It is probably not possible to disambiguate entirely the two effects of the deletion, and changing the start codon may result in an alternate start with other downstream effects. I think just explaining it more fully in the methods would satisfy my concerns.

      REFEREE #2: What about the issues with the overexpresssion? In my experience, presence of multicopy transgenes on an extrachromosomal arrays might not lead to over expression of the gene involved? This needs to be verified in some way.

      REFEREE #1: You are right about that. If the construct is tagged in some way they could try a western. I would recommend they integrate the transgenes, or just show results from several lines as you suggest.

      REFEREE #3: I agree the 27 bp deletion and over expression are reasonable technical issues. However, I view this a techical details vs. critical details for the novel regulatory mechanism. The point about ability to judge conservation is also reasonable but until the theory is firmly out there it is hard to test the conservation and broader applicability to other genes/proteins. Thus, while asking for additional information on these issues is reasonable I do not see the inability to address beyond highlighting as limitation in the text as critical to the overall validity of the work.

      REFEREE #2: I disagree with Reviewer #3, without knowing the details of 27 bp deletion the most reasonable interpretation of the data is simply that it is a loss-of-function allele of zyx-1. This goes beyond "technical" - at present there is no unequivocal evidence that peu-1 has any functional significance beyond that it is expressed as a peptide.

      REFEREE #3: I've been back through the manuscript. They have sequenced the deletion and therefore should be able to provide that information to satisfy the issue(s). For the over expression, short of silencing my experience is that they do over express and when you have multiple lines some express more than others (and some silence more than others). If you want evidence that the peptide is over expressed ask them to quantify via mass spec if it isn't tagged and they can't do a Western. Clearly they have work leading expertise in quantitative mass spec proteomics in C. elegans and should be able to do that. Generally speaking, rescue of a deletion is a pretty good sign that the expression is working though (and is an accepted standard).

      Significance

      Nature and significance of the advance: This is a very interesting paper about a gene regulatory mechanism in a type of poly-cistronic mRNA encoding peu-1 and zyx-1. Intriguingly, it seems peu-1 inhibits zyx-1 expression in cis (deletion of peu-1 increases ZYX-1 peptides), but PEU-1 promotes zyx-1 expression in trans (overexpression of PEU-1 increases ZYX-1 expression).

      Compare to existing published knowledge: This is the first study of its type on zyx-1.

      Audience: Those interested in gene regulatory mechanisms and in zyxin.

      My expertise: C. elegans cytoskeleton, cell migration, acto-myosin contractility.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity):

      Summary<br /> The authors have set out to study the Drosophila immune response against the fungus Aspergillus fumigatus. They found that Aspergillus fumigatus kills Drosophila Toll pathway mutants. The fungus does this without invasion because its dissemination is blocked by melanization. They suggest that there is a role for Toll in host defense distinct from resistance. The findings are interesting, and looks like the mycotoxins play a role. It also seems that there is some role of the Bomanins here, but I find that in particular Figure4 experiments are not convincing enough to provide a mechanistic insight as to what is going on. I think the authors need to think through what their results mean, and also, explain better (especially regarding Fig 4) their ideas and how the data fits them.

      We thank the reviewer for scrutinizing our manuscript as well as for suggestions to improve it.

      The role of mycotoxins is demonstrated:

      i) the fungus does not proliferate nor disseminate, also in Toll pathway mutant flies: thus, it must kill through diffusible substances, in as much as these immuno-deficient flies exhibit tremors toward the end of the infection;

      ii) a fungal strain devoid of the capacity to produce secondary metabolites is no longer virulent, even in Toll pathway mutant flies.

      The role of Bomanins is also demonstrated: the finding of a susceptibility of Bom__D__55C deletion flies to A. fumigatus and to mycotoxin challenges clearly shows that at least one or several Bomanin genes are required in the host defense against these challenges. The observation that this susceptibility can be rescued by the genetic overexpression of specific Bomanins indicates which ones are likely to mediate protection. The novel data we have included with the protection from mycotoxin action in neurons point clearly to BomS6 being the major mediator of protection against verruculogen action since it is the only one of two Bom genes to be induced in the head and with a proven potential for rescue of the Bom__D__55C phenotype.

      As regards the concept of the article, it is simple: we show that the Toll pathway does not control A. fumigatus infection by directly attacking the fungus but does so by neutralizing the effects of secreted virulence factors such as restrictocin and verruculogen. We further identify some of the relevant effectors such as Bomanins by using a genetic complementation strategy. To make our point clearer, we have now included additional data in which we show that BomS6 and BomS4 are the only Bomanins induced in the head of flies upon the injection of these two toxins. We next determine that BomS6 and not BomS4 expression in the nervous system dominantly protects the flies from the deleterious effects of verruculogen injection, both in terms of recovery from tremors and survival. Mechanistically, the Toll pathway protects the host from the action of verruculogen by expressing and likely secreting BomS6 from neurons.

      Major comments:<br /> Page 5: .."the fungal burden did not increase much in MyD88 flies challenged with 50 conidia (Fig. 1B)" - What do you mean did not increase much? There is a clear increase in Myd88 mutants compared to controls; would you expect a bigger increase (e.g. log scale induction)? Explain.

      When the injected dose is higher than 50 injected colonies, the fungal burden remains very close to that of the injected inoculum (Fig. EV1_F, J_). As for other pathogens regulated by the Toll pathway, it has been published that the microbial burden increases by log factors for filamentous fungi (Huang et al.., in revision), pathogenic yeasts (e.g., work from our laboratory Quintin et al. Journal of Immunology, 2013), bacteria (e. g., Duneau et al., eLife 2017; Huang et al., in revision). The pathogens usually proliferate exponentially in immuno-deficient hosts, which is clearly not the case of A. fumigatus, the first example we know of.

      Page 6: "the SPZ/Toll/MyD88 cassette is required for host defense against A. fumigatus infections, even though this pathogen only mildly stimulates the Toll pathway." - Should you rather say that A. fumigatus only mildly induces the Toll pathway target gene Drosomycin?

      The answer is negative. Fig. EV1_C_ clearly shows that BomS1 is also modestly induced as compared to an infection with E. faecalis. The promoter of BomS1 contains a canonical Dif-response element (Busse et al., EMBO J., 2007_)_. For a more thorough discussion of this point, please, see reply to Reviewer 2, Major Comment 2.

      Page 6: "...we tested Hayan mutant flies defective for this arm of innate immunity (Nam et al., 2012)." - elaborate this, which arm/which pathway?

      The title of the paragraph is “Drosophila melanization curbs A. fumigatus invasion”. The full first sentence of the paragraph actually read: “As melanization is a host defense of insects effective against fungal infections, we tested Hayan mutant flies defective for this arm of innate immunity”.

      This has not been introduced in the introduction. Explain.

      We have now added a couple of lines (82-83) to introduce melanization for the nonspecialist reader.

      Can you really draw this conclusion: "We conclude that melanization limits the proliferation and the dissemination of A. fumigatus injected into wild-type flies yet does not eradicate it at the injection site, where a melanization plug forms." Maybe you can based on the function/importance of the pathway to melanization, but you need to explain.

      Melanization is mediated by the Hayan protease and three phenol oxidases (two in adults) that catalyze the enzymatic reactions leading to melanin production (for Drosophila, please see Nam et al. EMBO J. (2012), Bingelli et al., PLoS Pathogen (2014), Dudzic et al., BMC Biology (2015), Cell Reports, 2019). Thus, finding that there is an increased proliferation and dissemination in null Hayan mutants is a strong indication for a role of melanization. The identification of a similar phenotype for PPO2 and PO1-PPO2 mutants demonstrates that melanization is curbing A. fumigatus. Our sentence is therefore fully justified.

      Page 10: "The cleavage of the 18S RNA was however much less pronounced in wild-type flies as compared to MyD88" - I am not sure what this means. Do you mean 28S?

      We thank the reviewer for pointing out this mistake that has now been corrected.

      And that the 28S peak is lower? Is this a quantitative method?

      The technique is liquid electrophoresis on a microchip. It is both a qualitative and quantitative technique that replaces traditional agarose or polyacrylamide gels.

      Fig. legend: "Arrows show the position of the 28S RNA sarcin fragment" - there are three arrows in both Fig 4E and F; specify which arrows point what.

      The thick arrow is now indicated in the figure legend to correspond to the much smaller sarcin fragment whereas the thin arrows on the graph clearly specify the position of the 28S RNA peaks.

      Based on the results, I am not convinced about the conclusion, that "restrictocin is able to inhibit translation to a detectable degree in vivo, likely through the cleavage of the ribosomal 28S a-sarcin/ricin loop as described in vitro." <- Do you draw this conclusion before doing the actual in vitro experiment, which is described next in the text (The rabbit reticulocute assay, S2 cells)?

      The existing literature (line 259 for a few selected references) has largely proven that restrictocin cleaves 28S RNA in vitro. We are demonstrating that this also happens in vivo in flies based on the generation of the alpha-sarcin fragment as well as the decreased 28S peaks. Our transgenic approach also indicates that restrictocin blocks translation in vivo. The in vitro approach has been implemented so that we could test the effect of synthetic BomS1 and BomS3 in cell culture. As to our knowledge, no one had demonstrated that restrictocin blocks translation in Drosophila cultured cells. It was therefore important to demonstrate it in cell culture using well-characterized in vitro techniques mastered by AT and FM.

      4H: Not sure what should be seen here, is it the darkest band at 0 uM that disappears?

      We have improved the figure and added an arrow to point out to the relevant band on the gel.

      HI & J need more explanation than what is now included in the text or Figure legend, is the conclusion that there is no difference? Write the stats above the Figs 4I & J (n.s.?).

      We have added NS on the figures and made our conclusion clearer (lines 295-298).

      Minor comments:

      It would have helped commenting if the manuscript contained line numbers

      We apologize for having initially provided a version in which lines were not numbered. At the prompting of Review Commons we immediately provided such a version, that was actually used by Reviewer 2.

      Why do you have the title "Hayan" on top of Fig 1F; you don't have this marking system in the other survival curves

      This point has now been addressed and the survival experiments checked for consistency.

      Fig 2A: Can you speculate why MyD88 flies die rapidly at day 10 if you inject PBST (your control)? What would happen to uninjected controls in otherwise the same conditions? (you could include an uninjected control here?)

      We suspect that this is linked to the trauma induced by the injection. Trauma has been shown to impact the homeostasis of the midgut epithelium (Lee & Miura, Current Topics Developmental Biology 2014, Chakrabarti et al., PLoS Genetics (2016)), and we suspect that it may lead to a leakiness of the gut allowing the passage of some bacteria from the gut microbiota that can proliferate in the hemocoel. Hence, we checked axenic and antibiotics-treated MyD88 flies to exclude that the limited sensitivity to trauma was not significantly contributing to the phenotypes we describe. It is also linked to the thickness of the needle and the problem is alleviated by using thinner needles.

      The uninjected control is now shown in Fig. EV8_E_.

      Please, see also the answer to Reviewer 2 Major comment 1.

      Fig 2E: Not sure what would be the best way of presenting the curves - different colors, dotted lines or something? Now if there are too many lines, they are hard to tell apart. because the symbols are not that visible. Like in 2E if you want to compare the light red/orange colored lines.

      We agree with the reviewer that the lines are hard to tell apart. This is however not a significant issue since the glip mutants display curves similar to that of the wt A. fumigatus control strain.

      For consistency add the caption also to Fig 3D (I assume it is the same as 3C)

      The caption was present in our version and is present in the revised version.

      For consistency, should you add Verruculogen on top of Fig 3F?

      Same reply as for the previous comment.

      Chronologically, how it is explained in the text, Figs 4A and B are in the wrong order.

      We fully agree with the reviewer. This problem has been addressed in the revised version.

      The quality of Fig 4 is not great, the text is hard to read (too small) and becomes blurry upon magnification.

      We fully agree with the reviewer. This problem has been addressed in the revised version.

      Page 12; "These data then suggest that a process akin to the immune surveillance of core cellular processes first described in C. elegans may also exist in Drosophila" - I think this sentence belongs to the discussion, this is not directly drawn from the results.

      We have followed the reviewer suggestion and have now developed our Discussion paragraph now entitled “Induction of the expression of specific Bomanin genes upon mycotoxin challenge”

      Referees cross-commenting

      I think we share many thoughts among all the reviewers.

      The main problem is that the manuscript language is quite strong; from the results many times it is not ok to make such strong statements. Some experiments need further analysis and clarification.

      I think in most cases, this could be achieved by softening the statements and adding more discussion, and not by making new experiments (some may be needed).

      We respectfully disagree with the reviewer on this point. There were obviously some misunderstandings that might be traced to the short format of the initial version. We have now developed the Discussion to clarify our conclusions as suggested by the reviewer.

      Minor things are that experiments are not advancing in a logical order between the text and the figures and there are problems with resolution in some figures.

      Statistics in some figures needs to be added.

      Please, see above.

      Reviewer #1 (Significance):

      The nature of the work is conceptual for the field, to understand the role of the Toll pathway and Bomanins in particular, in this fungal infection model. The work is interesting to a somewhat limited audience, mainly immunologists and in particular, people interested in the Drosophila model for immunity. The work may be interesting conceptually in understanding fungal infections.

      We are not certain that immunologists represent a limited audience. We agree that work on fungal infections is insufficiently funded with respect to the medical importance of these infections, as highlighted in our introduction and Perspective section of the Discussion.

      My expertise: I am a Drosophila immunity researcher with nearly 20 years of experience in working with fly immunity, in particular the Toll and the Imd pathways.

      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity):

      Summary:

      Xu et al. describe how A. fumigatus kills Toll-deficient fruit flies not by hyperproliferation, but more likely by virulence factors. Melanization is important for suppressing fungal spread. The Bomanin genes have an unknown function, and here the data suggest a reasonably convincing role for Toll in resilience. Overall the manuscript is thorough and presents a diversity of approaches that show Toll and the Bomanins in particular contribute to this resilience effect. The idea that Toll effectors are essential for resilience is interesting as other fly stress response pathways like JAK-STAT are better known for helping the fly cope with damages, while Toll is better known as an antifungal response.

      I believe the study, with some careful considerations added, would add a valuable series of observations to understanding how the host immune system promotes survival after infection. Overall I am quite positive about the results, and the authors have made a significant effort.

      We thank the reviewer for the positive evaluation of our work that actually spans many years of research on the Aspergillus fumigatus Drosophila infection model that is a major topic of our work at the Sino-French Hoffmann Institute of Guangzhou Medical University.

      Any experiment suggestions I make are strictly to improve the confidence in the interpretations of the results, but the language could alternately be softened to address those concerns. My major critique is that the authors repeatedly extend beyond what is shown, and occasionally in defiance of what is shown (if I understand the results correctly).

      We have chosen to perform additional experiments when needed. We have also clarified points where there were obvious misunderstandings by expanding our text that had been written under a very concise format.

      It is not thoroughly clear what the reviewer has in mind when using the word defiance. We suppose it refers to the work of Scott Lindsay with whom we are in contact. He actually attempted to monitor the C. glabrata burden but did not pursue this line of investigations as he already saw a difference after one hour and he thought that the Toll pathway cannot be induced so rapidly. Actually, David Duneau mentions a time of two to three hours for the Toll pathway to control E. faecalis infections (eLife, 2017) and Sandrine Uttenweiler-Joseph already saw by MALDI-TOF MS an induction of Bomanins and other DIMs at the earliest point tested, six hours (PhD thesis). There is absolutely no critique of the work of the Wasserman laboratory who has greatly contributed to our understanding of Bomanin functions. Some of our unpublished data clearly point out to an AMP role for at least one Bomanin gene against E. faecalis and we certainly do not exclude an AMP role for BomS against C. glabrata. This however does not dismiss the possibility that Bomanins may also have other roles in dealing with microbial toxins. We have been studying Candida infections in Drosophila for many years and have documented the host defense against C. glabrata (Quintin et al., JI, 2013). We do suspect that C. glabrata likely secretes virulence factors that have not been identified so far. We mention this as a possibility and certainly not as a truth. One should remember that investigators were unaware for a long period of the role of Candidalysin, a pore-forming toxin, in C. albicans infections.

      Finally, a dual role as AMP and protecting from secreted toxins has been clearly shown in the case of alpha-mammalian Defensins that we now are describing in our Revised Discussion (Kudryashova,Immunity, 2014).

      Comments below.

      Major comments:

      1) The language is too strong. Specifically the use of the phrase "anti-toxin" is too generalist, especially as the authors show that their candidate Bomanin does not bind to the toxin directly.

      We have checked all of the submitted documents: the term anti-toxin was never used (just found “anti” in antimicrobial, antifungal, antibiotics..), in this manuscript as well as in the companion article. and we have never excluded an indirect effect, quite to the contrary because of the in vitro experiment with restrictocin mentioned by the reviewer and other observations now included (see further below). We use the terms “protection” or “counteract”, which have not such a meaning. It is burdensome for the reader to read each time “counteract or protect from the actions of the toxins or the effects of the toxin.

      Instead, Toll mutants seem susceptible to damage/stress caused by injury/toxins. MyD88 even show general susceptibility to vehicle controls in Fig3C-D.

      The effects of stress related to the infection conditions and injury are clearly distinct from the much stronger ones exerted by the toxins themselves. As requested by the reviewer further below, we have submitted wild-type and immuno-deficient flies to several stresses such as heat or the injection of hydrogen peroxide or salt solution (Fig. EV8_B-E_). While the latter did not reveal any difference, MyD88 flies succumbed slightly faster to a strong 37°C stress; in contrast, they survived better to a 29°C exposure, the temperature at which we perform most experiments. However, the difference started to be visible only after some 15 days whereas the time frame in which flies succumb to A. fumigatus or toxin challenges is definitely much shorter by some 10 days. We also note that Bom__D__55C mutant flies behave like the isogenized wild-type controls in these assays, further excluding a potential role for general stress sensitivity as a contributor to the effect of toxins.

      As regards DMSO, there is indeed a general mild sensitivity of flies to DMSO, but not specifically affecting MyD88 mutant (Rebuttal Fig. 1J). We find that this effect is lessened when using thinner needles. Thus, the problem has become minor as we became more experienced. We had checked axenics- and antibiotics-treated flies to exclude a contribution from the microbiota. Finally, to uncouple the effects of verruculogen from those of DMSO, we have also challenged flies directly by introducing the powder, using a technique similar to that of the septic injury. While it is quantitatively less accurate, it clearly proves that verruculogen produces the reported effects (Fig. 3C) and was useful to measure Bom and Drosomycin expression by digital PCR in the heads of challenged flies, e.g., Fig. EV6_J-K_ and Figs EV_11&12_.

      Toll is important for development, so it may be expected that Toll flies could have development defects impacting resilience even if/when Toll flies can survive to adulthood. I don't say this to be too negative on the findings, which are quite convincing. But I am not sure that the phrase "anti-toxin" is right for what is shown.

      We fully agree with the reviewer on this point. We have failed to find RNAi lines that are efficient enough to mimic the Toll pathway phenotype when expressed ubiquitously at the adult stage. However, Bom__D__55C mutants do not seem to display a developmental phenotype and display a phenotype similar to that of MyD88 flies. Furthermore, our rescue experiments of the Bom__D__55C sensitivity phenotype to mycotoxin challenge is achieved by the overexpression of specific Boms that are induced only at the adult stage, making it unlikely that this sensitivity phenotype reflects a developmental problem, as had been shown to be the case for 18-wheeler that had initially been proposed to encode the IMD pathway receptor.

      A very interesting recent study shows Dif has a role in the synapse of neurons to protect from alcohol sensitivity. Could secreted Bomanins participate? This emphasizes a mechanism through which Toll mutants likely have defective neural development, which could make them stress response defective, especially to things like neurotoxins. See: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35273084/

      We are aware of this study first presented at the 2019 Fly Meeting in Dallas and this author did discuss with the authors of the study. However, we have found that Dif (and Dorsal) mutants are not sensitive to A. fumigatus infections nor to injected mycotoxins, as was the case already for C. glabrata (Quintin et al., JI, 2013).

      Lin et al. (2019) also showed lack of Bomanin secretion from the fat body in Bombardier mutants causes loss of tolerance (resilience?). So does Bomanin disruption increase susceptibility to stresses more generally, rather than specifically fungal toxins? And is this a development role, rather than an immune response role?

      The authors could try to use other stresses (NaCl, oxygen, heat, alcohol) to test the contribution of Bomanins to this resilience, which may reflect defective neural development rather than a role for secreted systemic immune-response peptides.

      Please, see replies above.

      2) The authors present a paradox. On the one hand, A. fumigatus hardly induces Drs/Bomanins (Fig. S1). Yet on the other, they propose that inducible Bomanins protect the fly from mycotoxins. Why do the authors say Toll is hardly induced by A. fumigatus at the start of the study (Fig S1), but later use the same data to argue that Bomanin induction underlies the resilience phenotype (Fig5).

      The reviewer raises an interesting point. Of note, we have added new data in Fig. EV2_B_ that document that all 55C Bomanin genes, BomS4-_excepted, are induced by a systemic infection. There is indeed somewhat of a paradox. The _Bom__D__55C deletion phenotype clearly establishes that Bomanins play a major role in the protection against mycotoxins and A. fumigatus. The rescue experiments rely on ectopic expression and therefore establish that specific Bomanins can mediate the protective effect. Our data on verruculogen suggest that there might be local inductions, e. g., in the head of BomS6 and BomS4. The brain represents a compartment that is separated from the hemocoel by the blood-brain-barrier. We have not been able to generate BomS6 null mutants so far. In this case, the relevant response may not be systemic. We only detect a weak signal for BomS peptides in the hemolymph of unchallenged flies, making it unlikely that a basal expression is important, at least as regards a systemic infection. We cannot however exclude local inductions at the level of tissues. This would not rely on hemocytes as “hemoless” flies are not susceptible to A. fumigatus or toxin challenges. This topic definitely warrants further investigations.

      In Fig 5, it looks like DMSO is nearly identical to A. fumigatus, so can the authors really suggest that equal induction to DMSO is relevant?

      We had stated that an induction of the Bomanins by the injection of DMSO alone precluded us from analyzing the effects of verruculogen on Bom gene expression. We have now bypassed this difficulty through direct challenges by the undissolved powder (Fig. 6_J-K,_ Fig. EV11).

      The authors' discussion of these points would benefit from considering Vaz et al. (2019; Cell Rep) to frame how much PAMP is injected given equal numbers of fungal cells vs. bacterial cells. To me the lower induction by injecting a few fungal cells with much lower surface area to volume ratio means equal microbe mass has exponentially less PAMP in fungal conidia cell walls (2-3um diameter) vs. equal mass of bacteria (0.5-1um diameter).

      We fully agree with the reviewer and now mention that C. glabrata also led to a milder induction of the Toll-mediated humoral response (Quintin et al. JI, 2013). In addition, it has been shown previously that ß-(1-3)-glucans, which are sensed by GNBP3 in Drosophila (Gottar et al., Cell, 2006), are concealed by the cell wall (germinating conidia) or hydrophobins (Wheeler et al., PLoS Pathogens, 2006; Aimanianda et al., Nature, 2009) . In the case of yeasts, these glucans are accessible only at the budding scar (Gantner et al., EMBO J., 2003).

      Fig S1O is not convincing that Boms alone are present. There is significant noise near Drs in FigS1 infected, which likely saturates the detector before Drs can fly to it. I say this because DIM4 (Daisho) indicates that Toll is strongly induced. The authors should show a larger mass range on the x-axis including peaks of other Toll-induced peptides like the BaramicinA DIM10, DIM12 and DIM13 peptides of their companion paper and DIM14 (Daisho), which are closer in mass to the Bomanins and less likely disrupted by the noise at 4300 m/z. The maldi-tof calibration to correct ranges is critical for arguments of quantification.

      We provide the primary data in the Rebuttal figures at the end of this document. These are the results obtained from three single flies (Files A29683PBUG22, A29684PBUG23 and A29684PBUG24). The first three spectra correspond to the full scale based on the major peaks observed (DIM4/BomS5) in two out of three spectra. At this scale, no signal is visible for Drosomycin at 4891 and the “noise” at 4278 is modest. Next, the multi-spectra report allows to put all three samples on the same sheet, this time zooming on the peaks of interests in the region 4300 (“noise”) and 4891 (Drosomycin). Finally, the next two pages zoom in on the BomS peptide signals and the next page keeps the same scale to document the 4300-5000 region. On the last page, it is obvious that the signal around 4300 is very modest and too distant to influence the Drosomycin ion, thereby excluding any effect of suppression. Of note, in the systemic immune response, Drosomycin is the most induced AMP with a concentration estimated to be around 0.3µM, an order of magnitude higher than other AMPs. Finally, these experiments have been performed by PB who initially developed the technique (Uttenweiler-Joseph, PNAS, 1998) and has been using and developing it ever since.

      Combined with comments in Major Concern 1, I am not convinced that the -inducible- Bomanin response mediates the resilience phenotype.

      Besides our replies above, we do hope that the new data we have included in Fig. 6 that document an induction of only two BomS genes in the heads of Drosophila upon verruculogen and the finding that BomS6 expression in the nervous system protects the fly from the effects of verruculogen will convince this reviewer.

      3) The author's language is very strong to disregard a possible antimicrobial activity.

      As noted above, this is a misunderstanding that we hope is dispelled in the revised discussion (see also above and replies to Reviewer 1).

      Previous studies showed increased Candida growth and decreased hemolymph killing activity in Bom55C flies (Lindsay et al. 2018 and Hanson et al. 2019).

      Please, see reply above. Factually, Lindsay et al. did not study the C. glabrata titer in vivo but using collected hemolymph. The killing activity likely requires a cofactor regulated by the Toll pathway. Hanson investigated the burden of the dimorphic C. albicans pathogen that in flies is filamentous and not C. glabrata.

      Also see minor concern (i).<br /> I grant that the data are consistent with a resilience role. However the authors found no binding of Bomanin to restrictocin, countering their idea of a -direct- anti-toxin effect.

      We are surprised by this comment. We certainly did not favor this idea nor developed it in the original manuscript, even though we cannot formally exclude it at this stage. Future experiments will focus on BomS6 potential interactions with these two mycotoxins.

      At present the authors cannot rule out a direct antimicrobial role, or even the possibility of two different roles for the same peptides (ex: one in resilience, one antimicrobial). For instance, it is difficult to explain the loss of killing activity of Bom-deficient hemolymph ex vivo from Lindsay et al. if Bomanins are strictly anti-toxins. Surely they must also do something generalist?

      Please, see our replies above and the paragraph dedicated to this topic in the Discussion.

      4) In most figures, the authors do not compare flies with shared genetic backgrounds.

      The MyD88 allele we are using is a transposon insertion from the Exelixis collection and we are using the wA5001 strain that was used to generate the collection of insertion (Thibault et al., Nat. Genetics 2004). We thank the reviewer for this comment as we realized we had forgotten to mention the Bom__D__55C strain. Lines 603-604 state that the deficiency line has been isogenized in the wA5001 background.

      The phenotypes are usually strong so I am not concerned.

      However the rescue effect of Bom transgenes in Fig 5C-D is based on smaller differences. Were these genetic backgrounds controlled?

      Yes, as much as we reasonably could. The fact that most BomS transgenes did not rescue gives further confidence in the data.

      Were transgenes inserted at the same site?

      We used the strategy for overexpression developed by the Basler laboratory (Bishof et al., Development 2013, Nat. Protocols 2014) that relies on insertions at the same site.

      The authors seemingly used a heat shock to express transgenes.

      Heat-shocks are usually a short exposure to higher temperatures, usually 37°C. Here, we have used the inducible Gal4-Gal80ts system developed by McGuire and Davis (Trends in Genetics, 2004). The Gal80 repressor inhibits Gal4 function at the permissive temperature (18°C) and becomes inactive at the restrictive temperature (29°C). Thus, we use a temperature shift and not a bona fide heat shock.

      Given a resilience effect is being studied, this heat stress approach is sub-optimal. Earlier experiments showing effect/no effect of Bomanin on heat shock resilience would improve confidence here. I would recommend assaying temperatures that can kill wild-type in order to confirm that Bom do not succumb earlier (ex. up to 37'C).

      The results have been discussed above and show that 29°C is not a concern for Bom__D__55C and not much of a significant problem as regards MyD88.

      In Fig5C the time resolution is poor, and the effect inconsistent across Bomanins. What are the differences in the Bomanins that the authors suspect could cause this? And how consistent are the experiments?

      We provide all the primary survival data in Rebuttal Fig.1 A-H. The partial protection effects of BomBc1, BomS3 and BomS6 against restrictocin are consistent in the three independent experiments (Fig. 5D and Rebuttal Fig. 1 A-B). As regards the seven independent experiments performed with verruculogen, we observed a strong protection conferred by BomS6 expression in six experiments whereas we detected a milder protection conferred by BomS1 in four out of seven experiments and no protection in the three other ones. The effects were always there after 24 hours, in keeping with our novel data showing that BomS6 expression allows a faster recovery, around 10 hours, from verruculogen-induced tremors (Fig. 6E-F).

      Since the effect is finished by 24h, perhaps a boxplot of percent survival at this time would better show the consistency across experiments.

      Given the argument presented just above and considering that this rebuttal letter will be published alongside the article, this may not be needed.

      Minor concerns:

      i) The authors say the fungal burden of Bom55C flies remains low in Fig 5B, but they never measure flies that are near death when fungal load is greatest, or FLUD like in other figures. Given low mortality at the following time points, it seems likely that A. fumigatus would grow beyond initial loads in those individuals and kill them. I grant that these loads are less than what is seen in Hayan mutants. I just might suggest a more careful consideration of the time points used and what can be said about the trends shown here.

      This is certainly a relevant point. The FLUD data are now presented in Fig. EV8_A_ and do not reveal any additional growth.

      ii) Could the authors comment somewhere about the levels of toxin they were required to inject to get a phenotype vs. the level of toxins the authors expect are found in the fly during infection? I appreciate that toxin injection likely requires much higher doses, but it would be good to know just how far the authors have pushed their experimental system beyond its natural range.

      This a question that is difficult to answer accurately as we are not sure the techniques exist to measure toxin levels in these small flies. We have tested a range of concentrations. It is clear that we push the system and likely use concentrations that are higher than those actually secreted by A. fumigatus during infection. Indeed, the mutant strains defective for the production of verruculogen or restrictocin display only a mildly reduced virulence in MyD88 flies. This makes it even more remarkable that wild-type flies are able to withstand these high, unphysiological concentrations, an argument for an indirect effect independent of the dose as pointed out now in the Discussion. How fungal pathogens balance the expression of the hundreds of secreted virulence factors, proteins and secondary metabolites, is a major frontier for future investigations be them plant or animal pathogenic fungi/

      Again regarding toxins vs. general stresses, one could manage to inject salt into the hemolymph and show a stress-sensitized fly would succumb at lower doses than wild-type, emphasizing the relevance of defining concentrations.

      We feel that just monitoring the survival of flies after a challenge that produces an effect is sufficient (Fig. EV8_C_).

      The authors could also write toxin concentrations clearly in the figure/legend per experiment.

      Corrected.

      iii) Throughout the manuscript, the order that figures/panels are cited is inconsistent. Perhaps the text could be re-written so the reader can follow the figures more intuitively while going through the text?

      Corrected.

      iv) There are a few points where run-on sentences, involving many commas, make it hard to follow the logic. I might suggest a careful reading to break up long sentences into two sentences to ensure clarity.

      We hope to have addressed this concern.

      v) Line 279-281: this is the first and only mention of the immune surveillance hypothesis in nematodes. This is strange, given the authors are effectively describing an analogous idea exists in flies? Perhaps this could be added somewhere in the introduction or discussion.

      We have followed the advice of the reviewers and now discuss this point more fully in the Discussion under its own subheading.

      Small points

      • What timepoints are the gene expression data from? Could the authors indicate this in figures/legends?

      Done

      • Line 133-135: "We conclude that MyD88 flies succumb to a low A. fumigatus burden..." - could the authors cite a figure panel here to emphasize what evidence they're referring to.

      Done

      • Line 151-152: Dudzic et al. (2019- Cell Reports Figure 3) showed that PPO2 was regulated by Hayan, while PPO1 by Sp7. This relevant study should be cited here or in the introduction/discussion.

      Excellent suggestion, this was indeed an important study. Done

      • Line 179-180: could the authors define the gliotoxin mutant strain here in the text for clarity?

      Done

      • Line 196: Fig. 4A-B should be Fig. **S4 A-B?

      Corrected.

      • Fig4A: perhaps the authors could reduce the x-axis to focus on the early time points? If I understand correctly, aspf1 has slightly delayed killing compared to akuB (˜50% difference at 2 days), but both kill 100% by 3 days.

      Done

      • Fig4G: can the authors define the GFP transgene on pg10? Not clear what this is, or what this means. Brain? Fat body? The legend of Fig4G and the key in the top left... it's not easy to quickly understand what is shown in Fig4G.

      Done

      • Line 247: I would drop the "at the intracellular level" part. I'm not sure this is robustly shown given the use of an in vitro model where there is no closed extracellular environment. The data are convincing of the effect, this is just a semantic point.

      We agree that there is no closed extracellular environment and that therefore any signal emitted by the cells might get too diluted. However, the addition of EGF will activate the Toll intracellular through the chimeric EGFR-Toll receptor. As restrictocin is known to act intracellularly, one might have though that there might be some intracellular effectors mediating the Toll-dependent protection against restrictocin. Our sentence excludes this possibility.

      • Line 257-258: Cohen et al. (2020- Front Imm) never used Bomanin mutants. Did the authors mean to cite Hanson et al. (2019) here, which seems to fit their described citation re: Bom55C vs. Toll mutant flies (Fig. 2)? Given Hanson et al. infected Toll mutant and Bom55C flies with many bacteria/fungi including A. fumigatus, it's strange this study is not discussed currently.

      The reviewer is correct. Cohen et al. did use A. fumigatus, but on Daisho mutants and MyD88 and not Bom__D__55C as a control. We are now citing Hanson et al., 2019 in lines 443-449 (Discussion).

      • Fig5C-D: the labeling is difficult to follow.

      This is difficult to address unless multiplying EV figures. We feel this is not needed: the important curves are in color and each such curve is seen on the graphs.

      • Line 318: a -possible- AMP role of Bomanins was proposed because of the aforementioned killing activity of wt but not Bom mutant hemolymph, alongside rescue by single Bom genes. To say this was based only on survival experiments is incorrect.

      The paragraph has been rewritten and expanded to dispel any misunderstanding.

      • Line 324-328: could the authors cite appropriate references after "inhibition of calcium-activated K+ channels" ?

      Done

      • comment re-Line 334: Toll10b flies have melanotic tumors and are in general in a stressed state. Might their rescue be due to increased stress tolerance by pre-activated stress responses?

      This is a developmental effect occurring during larval stages, also observed for Cactus mutants. Here, we use a UAS-Tl10B transgene that is induced only at the adult stage using the Gal4-Gal80ts system. Thus, any stress is minimized as much as possible. Furthermore, we can phenocopy this phenotype to a large extent using a UAS-BomS6 driver, even though the phenotypes are subtly different as regards the protection against verruculogen-induced tremors.

      Referees cross-commenting

      Yes I agree that the data themselves are not the issue, nor even the direction of the results. But there are many overly-strong statements that go so far as to refute ideas which are supported by other studies, and for which the authors here do not provide any contradictory evidence.

      We hope that this revised, extended version has clarified any misunderstanding in the initial version.

      As per my review, I would be happy with a re-write that softened the language overall. I genuinely wonder if these Bomanin mutants simply have poor development, and so they are susceptible to neurotoxins/stress because their nervous system/development leaves them less resilient in general. Experiments testing their resilience to different stresses would greatly elevate the ability to make confident insights in the present manuscript. Currently the authors have only investigated one type of phenotype and interpreted it as if that is evidence of the evolved purpose of the peptides. This approach does not account for many other possible (and reasonable) explanations.

      We have performed the experiments suggested by the reviewer. While we see a modest effect of heat on MyD88, it is not found in Bom__D55C flies, which display essentially the same phenotype as MyD88 with regards to the sensitivity to A. fumigatus or some of its secreted mycotoxins_._

      Reviewer #2 (Significance):

      This paper should be of broad interest to the study of immunology, where roles for effectors are typically thought of as cytokines. In fruit flies and other invertebrates that lack adaptive immunity, immune effectors are more thought of as direct actors likely with antimicrobial properties. The finding that Toll might mediate resilience is interesting, and implicating well known Toll effectors provides an important step forward towards a mechanistic basis behind this resilience effect.

      We thank the reviewer for his appraisal of the significance of our work.

      My expertise is in insect and innate immunity.

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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary:

      Xu et al. describe how A. fumigatus kills Toll-deficient fruit flies not by hyperproliferation, but more likely by virulence factors. Melanization is important for suppressing fungal spread. The Bomanin genes have an unknown function, and here the data suggest a reasonably convincing role for Toll in resilience. Overall the manuscript is thorough and presents a diversity of approaches that show Toll and the Bomanins in particular contribute to this resilience effect. The idea that Toll effectors are essential for resilience is interesting as other fly stress response pathways like JAK-STAT are better known for helping the fly cope with damages, while Toll is better known as an antifungal response.

      I believe the study, with some careful considerations added, would add a valuable series of observations to understanding how the host immune system promotes survival after infection. Overall I am quite positive about the results, and the authors have made a significant effort. Any experiment suggestions I make are strictly to improve the confidence in the interpretations of the results, but the language could alternately be softened to address those concerns. My major critique is that the authors repeatedly extend beyond what is shown, and occasionally in defiance of what is shown (if I understand the results correctly). Comments below.

      Major comments:

      1. The language is too strong. Specifically the use of the phrase "anti-toxin" is too generalist, especially as the authors show that their candidate Bomanin does not bind to the toxin directly. Instead, Toll mutants seem susceptible to damage/stress caused by injury/toxins. MyD88 even show general susceptibility to vehicle controls in Fig3C-D. Toll is important for development, so it may be expected that Toll flies could have development defects impacting resilience even if/when Toll flies can survive to adulthood. I don't say this to be too negative on the findings, which are quite convincing. But I am not sure that the phrase "anti-toxin" is right for what is shown.<br /> A very interesting recent study shows Dif has a role in the synapse of neurons to protect from alcohol sensitivity. Could secreted Bomanins participate? This emphasizes a mechanism through which Toll mutants likely have defective neural development, which could make them stress response defective, especially to things like neurotoxins. See: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35273084/<br /> Lin et al. (2019) also showed lack of Bomanin secretion from the fat body in Bombardier mutants causes loss of tolerance (resilience?). So does Bomanin disruption increase susceptibility to stresses more generally, rather than specifically fungal toxins? And is this a development role, rather than an immune response role?<br /> The authors could try to use other stresses (NaCl, oxygen, heat, alcohol) to test the contribution of Bomanins to this resilience, which may reflect defective neural development rather than a role for secreted systemic immune-response peptides.
      2. The authors present a paradox. On the one hand, A. fumigatus hardly induces Drs/Bomanins (Fig. S1). Yet on the other, they propose that inducible Bomanins protect the fly from mycotoxins. Why do the authors say Toll is hardly induced by A. fumigatus at the start of the study (Fig S1), but later use the same data to argue that Bomanin induction underlies the resilience phenotype (Fig5). In Fig 5, it looks like DMSO is nearly identical to A. fumigatus, so can the authors really suggest that equal induction to DMSO is relevant?<br /> The authors' discussion of these points would benefit from considering Vaz et al. (2019; Cell Rep) to frame how much PAMP is injected given equal numbers of fungal cells vs. bacterial cells. To me the lower induction by injecting a few fungal cells with much lower surface area to volume ratio means equal microbe mass has exponentially less PAMP in fungal conidia cell walls (2-3um diameter) vs. equal mass of bacteria (0.5-1um diameter).<br /> Fig S1O is not convincing that Boms alone are present. There is significant noise near Drs in FigS1 infected, which likely saturates the detector before Drs can fly to it. I say this because DIM4 (Daisho) indicates that Toll is strongly induced. The authors should show a larger mass range on the x-axis including peaks of other Toll-induced peptides like the BaramicinA DIM10, DIM12 and DIM13 peptides of their companion paper and DIM14 (Daisho), which are closer in mass to the Bomanins and less likely disrupted by the noise at 4300 m/z. The maldi-tof calibration to correct ranges is critical for arguments of quantification.<br /> Combined with comments in Major Concern 1, I am not convinced that the -inducible- Bomanin response mediates the resilience phenotype.
      3. The author's language is very strong to disregard a possible antimicrobial activity. Previous studies showed increased Candida growth and decreased hemolymph killing activity in Bom55C flies (Lindsay et al. 2018 and Hanson et al. 2019). Also see minor concern (i).<br /> I grant that the data are consistent with a resilience role. However the authors found no binding of Bomanin to restrictocin, countering their idea of a -direct- anti-toxin effect. At present the authors cannot rule out a direct antimicrobial role, or even the possibility of two different roles for the same peptides (ex: one in resilience, one antimicrobial). For instance, it is difficult to explain the loss of killing activity of Bom-deficient hemolymph ex vivo from Lindsay et al. if Bomanins are strictly anti-toxins. Surely they must also do something generalist?
      4. In most figures, the authors do not compare flies with shared genetic backgrounds. The phenotypes are usually strong so I am not concerned.<br /> However the rescue effect of Bom transgenes in Fig 5C-D is based on smaller differences. Were these genetic backgrounds controlled? Were transgenes inserted at the same site? The authors seemingly used a heat shock to express transgenes. Given a resilience effect is being studied, this heat stress approach is sub-optimal. Earlier experiments showing effect/no effect of Bomanin on heat shock resilience would improve confidence here. I would recommend assaying temperatures that can kill wild-type in order to confirm that Bom do not succumb earlier (ex. up to 37'C).<br /> In Fig5C the time resolution is poor, and the effect inconsistent across Bomanins. What are the differences in the Bomanins that the authors suspect could cause this? And how consistent are the experiments? Since the effect is finished by 24h, perhaps a boxplot of percent survival at this time would better show the consistency across experiments.

      Minor concerns:

      • i) The authors say the fungal burden of Bom55C flies remains low in Fig 5B, but they never measure flies that are near death when fungal load is greatest, or FLUD like in other figures. Given low mortality at the following time points, it seems likely that A. fumigatus would grow beyond initial loads in those individuals and kill them. I grant that these loads are less than what is seen in Hayan mutants. I just might suggest a more careful consideration of the time points used and what can be said about the trends shown here.
      • ii) Could the authors comment somewhere about the levels of toxin they were required to inject to get a phenotype vs. the level of toxins the authors expect are found in the fly during infection? I appreciate that toxin injection likely requires much higher doses, but it would be good to know just how far the authors have pushed their experimental system beyond its natural range. Again regarding toxins vs. general stresses, one could manage to inject salt into the hemolymph and show a stress-sensitized fly would succumb at lower doses than wild-type, emphasizing the relevance of defining concentrations. The authors could also write toxin concentrations clearly in the figure/legend per experiment.
      • iii) Throughout the manuscript, the order that figures/panels are cited is inconsistent. Perhaps the text could be re-written so the reader can follow the figures more intuitively while going through the text?
      • iv) There are a few points where run-on sentences, involving many commas, make it hard to follow the logic. I might suggest a careful reading to break up long sentences into two sentences to ensure clarity.
      • v) Line 279-281: this is the first and only mention of the immune surveillance hypothesis in nematodes. This is strange, given the authors are effectively describing an analogous idea exists in flies? Perhaps this could be added somewhere in the introduction or discussion.

      Small points

      • What timepoints are the gene expression data from? Could the authors indicate this in figures/legends?
      • Line 133-135: "We conclude that MyD88 flies succumb to a low A. fumigatus burden..." - could the authors cite a figure panel here to emphasize what evidence they're referring to.
      • Line 151-152: Dudzic et al. (2019- Cell Reports Figure 3) showed that PPO2 was regulated by Hayan, while PPO1 by Sp7. This relevant study should be cited here or in the introduction/discussion.
      • Line 179-180: could the authors define the gliotoxin mutant strain here in the text for clarity?
      • Line 196: Fig. 4A-B should be Fig. **S4 A-B?
      • Fig4A: perhaps the authors could reduce the x-axis to focus on the early time points? If I understand correctly, aspf1 has slightly delayed killing compared to akuB (˜50% difference at 2 days), but both kill 100% by 3 days.
      • Fig4G: can the authors define the GFP transgene on pg10? Not clear what this is, or what this means. Brain? Fat body? The legend of Fig4G and the key in the top left... it's not easy to quickly understand what is shown in Fig4G.
      • Line 247: I would drop the "at the intracellular level" part. I'm not sure this is robustly shown given the use of an in vitro model where there is no closed extracellular environment. The data are convincing of the effect, this is just a semantic point.
      • Line 257-258: Cohen et al. (2020- Front Imm) never used Bomanin mutants. Did the authors mean to cite Hanson et al. (2019) here, which seems to fit their described citation re: Bom55C vs. Toll mutant flies (Fig. 2)? Given Hanson et al. infected Toll mutant and Bom55C flies with many bacteria/fungi including A. fumigatus, it's strange this study is not discussed currently.
      • Fig5C-D: the labeling is difficult to follow.
      • Line 318: a -possible- AMP role of Bomanins was proposed because of the aforementioned killing activity of wt but not Bom mutant hemolymph, alongside rescue by single Bom genes. To say this was based only on survival experiments is incorrect.
      • Line 324-328: could the authors cite appropriate references after "inhibition of calcium-activated K+ channels" ?
      • comment re-Line 334: Toll10b flies have melanotic tumors and are in general in a stressed state. Might their rescue be due to increased stress tolerance by pre-activated stress responses?

      Referees cross-commenting

      Yes I agree that the data themselves are not the issue, nor even the direction of the results. But there are many overly-strong statements that go so far as to refute ideas which are supported by other studies, and for which the authors here do not provide any contradictory evidence.

      As per my review, I would be happy with a re-write that softened the language overall. I genuinely wonder if these Bomanin mutants simply have poor development, and so they are susceptible to neurotoxins/stress because their nervous system/development leaves them less resilient in general. Experiments testing their resilience to different stresses would greatly elevate the ability to make confident insights in the present manuscript. Currently the authors have only investigated one type of phenotype and interpreted it as if that is evidence of the evolved purpose of the peptides. This approach does not account for many other possible (and reasonable) explanations.

      Significance

      This paper should be of broad interest to the study of immunology, where roles for effectors are typically thought of as cytokines. In fruit flies and other invertebrates that lack adaptive immunity, immune effectors are more thought of as direct actors likely with antimicrobial properties. The finding that Toll might mediate resilience is interesting, and implicating well known Toll effectors provides an important step forward towards a mechanistic basis behind this resilience effect.

      My expertise is in insect and innate immunity.

    3. Note: This preprint has been reviewed by subject experts for Review Commons. Content has not been altered except for formatting.

      Learn more at Review Commons


      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary

      The authors have set out to study the Drosophila immune response against the fungus Aspergillus fumigatus. They found that Aspergillus fumigatus kills Drosophila Toll pathway mutants. The fungus does this without invasion because its dissemination is blocked by melanization. They suggest that there is a role for Toll in host defense distinct from resistance. The findings are interesting, and looks like the mycotoxins play a role. It also seems that there is some role of the Bomanins here, but I find that in particular Figure4 experiments are not convincing enough to provide a mechanistic insight as to what is going on. I think the authors need to think through what their results mean, and also, explain better (especially regarding Fig 4) their ideas and how the data fits them.

      Major comments:

      Page 5: .."the fungal burden did not increase much in MyD88 flies challenged with 50 conidia (Fig. 1B)" - What do you mean did not increase much? There is a clear increase in Myd88 mutants compared to controls; would you expect a bigger increase (e.g. log scale induction)? Explain.

      Page 6: "the SPZ/Toll/MyD88 cassette is required for host defense against A. fumigatus infections, even though this pathogen only mildly stimulates the Toll pathway." - Should you rather say that A. fumigatus only mildly induces the Toll pathway target gene Drosomycin?

      Page 6: "...we tested Hayan mutant flies defective for this arm of innate immunity (Nam et al., 2012)." - elaborate this, which arm/which pathway? This has not been introduced in the introduction. Explain. Can you really draw this conclusion: "We conclude that melanization limits the proliferation and the dissemination of A. fumigatus injected into wild-type flies yet does not eradicate it at the injection site, where a melanization plug forms." Maybe you can based on the function/importance of the pathway to melanization, but you need to explain.

      Page 10: "The cleavage of the 18S RNA was however much less pronounced in wild-type flies as compared to MyD88" - I am not sure what this means. Do you mean 28S? And that the 28S peak is lower? Is this a quantitative method? Fig. legend: "Arrows show the position of the 28S RNA sarcin fragment" - there are three arrows in both Fig 4E and F; specify which arrows point what.<br /> Based on the results, I am not convinced about the conclusion, that "restrictocin is able to inhibit translation to a detectable degree in vivo, likely through the cleavage of the ribosomal 28S a-sarcin/ricin loop as described in vitro." <- Do you draw this conclusion before doing the actual in vitro experiment, which is described next in the text (The rabbit reticulocute assay, S2 cells)?

      4H: Not sure what should be seen here, is it the darkest band at 0 uM that disappears? HI & J need more explanation than what is now included in the text or Figure legend, is the conclusion that there is no difference? Write the stats above the Figs 4I & J (n.s.?).

      Minor comments:

      It would have helped commenting if the manuscript contained line numbers

      Why do you have the title "Hayan" on top of Fig 1F; you don't have this marking system in the other survival curves

      Fig 2A: Can you speculate why MyD88 flies die rapidly at day 10 if you inject PBST (your control)? What would happen to uninjected controls in otherwise the same conditions? (you could include an uninjected control here?)

      Fig 2E: Not sure what would be the best way of presenting the curves - different colors, dotted lines or something? Now if there are too many lines, they are hard to tell apart. because the symbols are not that visible. Like in 2E if you want to compare the light red/orange colored lines.

      For consistency add the caption also to Fig 3D (I assume it is the same as 3C)

      For consistency, should you add Verruculogen on top of Fig 3F?

      Chronologically, how it is explained in the text, Figs 4A and B are in the wrong order.

      The quality of Fig 4 is not great, the text is hard to read (too small) and becomes blurry upon magnification.

      Page 12; "These data then suggest that a process akin to the immune surveillance of core cellular processes first described in C. elegans may also exist in Drosophila" - I think this sentence belongs to the discussion, this is not directly drawn from the results.

      Referees cross-commenting

      I think we share many thoughts among all the reviewers. The main problem is that the manuscript language is quite strong; from the results many times it is not ok to make such strong statements. Some experiments need further analysis and clarification. I think in most cases, this could be achieved by softening the statements and adding more discussion, and not by making new experiments (some may be needed).

      Minor things are that experiments are not advancing in a logical order between the text and the figures and there are problems with resolution in some figures. Statistics in some figures needs to be added.

      Significance

      The nature of the work is conceptual for the field, to understand the role of the Toll pathway and Bomanins in particular, in this fungal infection model. The work is interesting to a somewhat limited audience, mainly immunologists and in particular, people interested in the Drosophila model for immunity. The work may be interesting conceptually in understanding fungal infections.

      My expertise: I am a Drosophila immunity researcher with nearly 20 years of experience in working with fly immunity, in particular the Toll and the Imd pathways.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      We thank the reviewers for their time in evaluating of our manuscript and for the useful feedback. We are grateful that reviewers acknowledged that our study is important because it “sheds much needed light on this less documented early stage of cancer development”. The reviewers were overall positive in their assessment and, as reviewer #3 noted, our study “advances this field conceptually by highlighting the importance of targeting the cell signaling and chromatin regulation together”. The common criticism of all reviewers relates to writing style, some textual interpretation and ensuring that the number of replicates, statistical analysis, and cell culture type were appropriately mentioned. We felt these were valid points and have taken onboard all these comments. A shared concern between two of the reviewers was related to the logic behind the timepoints we chose to analyse cells in the different assays. We are confident that we have addressed this, and all other comments as detailed below.<br /> Please find below a point-by-point reply to the reviewer’s comments.

      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity):

      This study aimed to identify events that happens early in malignant transformation of breast cancer (BC) cells that are driven by HER2 oncogene. Constructing a 3D inducible model to study impact of HER2 protein level on BC cell and assessment of gross morphological changes, protein phosphorylation and chromatin accessibility at different time points of HER2 activation.

      Using a controllable in vitro model is a good approach although it is not novel. Also the method used to assess HER2 protein positivity is not standardized nor clinically relevant. Positivity of HER2 in clinical practice is assessed either through immunohistochemistry (IHC 3+ or 2+ with gene amplification), however the author did not mention any control for positivity except western blot which is not used in clinical practice.

      We agree with the reviewer that we should have included our comparison of HER2 protein levels for our cells with a positive control. We have tested this, and the data will be included in the revised version of the manuscript. Briefly, both western blot (WB) and IHC are very useful methods with different benefits: WB is less cost effective but more quantitative, while IHC gives a better overview of tissue heterogeneity. Indeed, due to higher sample processing costs, WB is not used in clinical practice to assess HER2 but it has been shown that there is a high concordance (in 95% of over 300 tumours analysed) between the two methods as both techniques showed prognostic significance R. Molina et al., 1992 (PMID: 1363511). We performed comparison of HER2 protein expression levels of our subpopulations (low, medium, and high HER2 expressing cells) versus two patients’ samples that were already known to be HER2 positive using IHC 3+ or 2+. We were able to demonstrate that HER2 protein levels as measured by western blotting showed that the low HER2 expressing cells expressed less HER2 protein compared to IHC 3+ or 2+ and may be comparable to patients with IHC 1+, which are considered HER2 negative and do not qualify for anti-HER2 therapies such as Trastuzumab.

      There is difference between early HER2 positive BC and HER2 low BC. As the earlier is driven by HER2 oncogenic signalling pathway, but the latter is not.<br /> Identification of molecular changes that occur at HER2 low BC seems very important and clinically relevant, however HER 2 low is not fully characterized, yet. And the only definition available is either HER2 1+ or 2+ without gene amplification. The author was not very clear about threshold he followed to call the model HER2 low. Is it positive with lower limit of positivity or just small amount of protein). He also concluded that BC with sub-threshold of HER2 protein behave more aggressive than HER2 positive BC. What is the threshold and was it correlated with IHC or gene amplification level to be reliable?

      The HER2 positive population in our in vitro inducible system was determined by flow cytometry, we separated the overall (bulk) HER2 positive cells into three different subpopulations and selected the bottom 20% of HER2 expressing cells as the “low HER2” and the top 20% of HER2 expressing cells as “high HER2”. We show in figure 4C the different thresholds for low, med, high HER2 protein expression by flow cytometry. We have modified the figure and the figure legend (figure 4C) to better indicate the different subpopulations. Through western blotting we compared these population of cells with patients’ samples that had IHC 3+ or 2+ and showed that low HER2 population expressed less protein than IHC 2+, whereas the high HER2 was relatively comparable to IHC 3+ sample.

      The status of oestrogen and progesterone receptors were not highlighted. Triple negative breast cancer, for instance, is more aggressive than HER2 positive BC, this may be the reason for the worse behaviour.

      We have modified our main text in the manuscript, line 68-69, to better reflect the fact the MCF10A cells are both oestrogen (ER) and progesterone (PR) negative, this has been already characterised by Qu, Y et al., 2015 (PMID: 26147507). However, importantly, we do not think that ER and PR status is the reason these cells are relatively more aggressive, as normal MCF10A cells without HER2 expression did not display any transformative characteristics in our molecular analysis and/or in vitro functional assays, despite being ER and PR negative.

      At line 130, "The low levels of HER2 protein activation at early time point may closely mimic at least partially the signalling changes occurring in HER2 positive BC patients". This claim is not quite true, as low levels of HER2 protein activation doesn't activate HER2 oncogenic signalling pathway as HER2 positive does.

      We thank you for this insightful comment, we have modified our main text to better reflect our view (line 132-133). However, we were not sure which published data the reviewer was referring to in this case. In particular, if low HER2 levels can still form dimerisation with its family members and induce signalling via its family partners such as HER1, HER3 or HER4.

      The author aimed to study the signalling changes accompanying low levels of HER2 induction by lowering significance threshold to log2fold > 0.5. Lowering the threshold for significance will increase the total number of phosphorylated protein (both at low HER2 levels and high levels). So, studying the whole significant proteins at whole time points will not be exclusive for low HER2 levels and this was evident through activation of MAPK cascade which is one of downstream signalling pathway of HER2 positive BC.

      We agree that a log2fold change > 0.5 would increase the total number of significantly phosphorylated proteins. We first performed the analysis on a more stringent cut-off value of log2fold change > 1.5 p-value, <0.05 as shown in figure 2B. In the supplementary we also show the reduced stringency of log2fold change > 0.5, p-value <0.05, for the following reasons: when it comes to proteins, it is conceivable that a log2fold change > 0.5 is sufficient to induce molecular changes; secondly, our study investigates changes that occur just half an hour, and up to 7 hours, after HER2 protein induction. At such early time-points, proteins would be beginning to be phosphorylated and the extent of it may not be pronounced (especially in a small subset of the population); finally, we thought it is important to share this supplementary analysis with the scientific community to have access to this data so that they may further interrogate it from different perspectives.

      Combining HER2 protein level (both IHC and Western blot) to different time points will give better understanding of events associated with HER2 low, early positive or late positive.

      As above, IHC is routinely performed for clinical diagnosis because it is cost effective. Although, western blotting is laborious and expensive, it is more quantitative compared to IHC.

      Reviewer #1 (Significance):

      This work provides good evidence to changes that happen at early HER2 positive breast cancer transformation and introducing a chromatin opening and accessibility as a new target of treatment of HER2 positive breast cancer patients.

      We thank reviewer #1 for their thoughtful feedback and for their appreciation of our work.

      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity):

      HER2 amplification is associated with poor prognosis of breast cancer. Despite it has been extensively studied, it deserves thorough study how HER2 amplification alters downstream signaling pathways, chromatin structure and gene expression, and how cells overcome the hurdles in order to transform. In this study, Hayat et al used doxycycline-induced HER2 expression in MCF10A cells to recapitulate the very early stage of HER2 expression and HER2-induced mammary epithelial cell transformation. The authors performed global phosphoproteomic, ATAC-seq and single-cell RNA-seq, and propose sub-threshold low level HER2 expression activates signaling pathways and increases chromatin accessibility required for cell transformation, while high HER2 expression level in early stages results in decreased chromatin accessibility.

      Major comments:<br /> 1. Although it is not clearly described, it seems that phosphoproteomic and single-cell RNA-seq were performed using 2D-cultured cells, while ATAC-seq was performed using 2D (FACS sorted cells based on HER2 expression levels) or 3D (time course)-cultured cells. Cells cultured on 2D and 3D are significantly different on cell signaling, chromatin structure and gene expression, and therefore cannot be compared.

      We agree that there are differences between 2D and 3D cell cultures, which may impact on the multi-omics experiments performed in this study. In an ideal world we would have preferred to be able to conduct all experiments in 3D cell cultures, including the phosphoproteomics experiments. However, this is not feasible because the phosphoproteomics experiment requires 500ug of total protein which corresponds to approximately 10 million cells for each condition and replicates in 3D matrices. 3D structures would have also presented with accessibility issues since doxycycline might not have reached all cells equally at the 30 minutes timepoint. Since we were analysing early timepoints for phosphoproteomics, homogeneity in induction was important. We performed ATAC-seq in 3D cell culture because it was feasible as it only required 25,000-50,000 cells to be grown in small 3D cell cultures and is indeed superior for physiological relevance. We therefore had to compromise and worked with the assumption that immediate signaling events will not be fundamentally different in 2D vs 3D. We have modified the main text to better reflect this and have indicated which experiments were performed in 2D vs 3D in the figure legends and the methods section.

      1. Phosphoproteomic (0.5, 4 and 7 hours), ATAC-seq (1, 4, 7, 24 and 48 hours) and single-cell RNA-seq (7, 24, 48 and 72 hours) were performed on cells at different time points after doxycycline treatment. The authors need to clearly explain the rationale why such time points were chosen for each experiment in the text.

      There are indeed differences in the time-points analysed between the different multi-omics analysis. However, as mentioned above, the reason for selecting such early time points for the phosphoproteomic experiment was that signalling changes are rapid and we were focused on characterising the early signalling dynamics. With regards to the ATAC-seq and scRNA-seq, there are several shared time-points such as the 7h, 24h, and the 48h. Additionally, as the chromatin changes would be slower acting as compared to signalling changes, two later time-points were selected including the 48h (ATAC-seq) and 72h (scRNA-seq) to capture some late changes during cellular transformation.

      1. Change on chromatin accessibility does not necessarily mean change on gene expression levels. RNA-seq needs to be performed and analyzed along with ATAC-seq data.

      We agree that chromatin accessibility does not necessarily correlates with gene expression changes and the need to perform RNA-seq to make such a conclusion. This is the reason we performed single cell RNA-seq, which looks at changes in high temporal and cellular resolution. This is particularly useful for the heterogenous cell population that we worked in to better understand the differences between cell types.

      1. Analyses on multi-omics data are quite preliminary. Clustering analysis on the time course of phosphoproteomic, ATAC-seq and single-cell RNA-seq will help characterize the dynamics of cell signaling and gene expression. Integrated analyses on multi-omics data and construction of regulatory network are necessary to identify the key signaling node and key epigenetic regulators/machinery that facilitate or prevent cell transformation. Integrated analyses, of course, need to be performed on data obtained from cells cultured in the same conditions.

      We think our study is an important work and provides a strong foundation for a comprehensive, integrative multi-omics study using primary human breast cells with parallel analysis performed on the same population of cells using the latest techniques such as scATAC and RNA-seq or scNMT-seq. We are indeed in the process to apply for funding in a larger analysis that involves in vivo work and clinical samples, using this study as a foundation.

      1. The authors picked up several genes from the analyses, and discussed the potential importance in cell transformation without functional validation. It is important to show data demonstrating altered expression of certain genes and/or altered activity of certain signaling pathway/epigenetic regulators is indeed important for cell transformation in low HER2-expressing condition or preventing cell transformation in high HER2-expressing condition.

      We agree that this is important. The scope of this study is to report on the result that low HER2 was unexpectedly more aggressive compared to high HER2, which was a highly reproducible observation, and identified a molecular explanation for this behaviour (dedifferentiation and predominant chromatin opening). In terms of cross validation, we found the MUC1 protein expression to be low in low HER2 expressing cells, indicating that they are more stem-like (figure 4B). We confirmed and validated this finding in our scRNA-seq data shown in figure 4F. The pathway analysis from phosphoproteomic study shows that MAPK pathway is highly activated upon HER2 protein overexpression. To validate this claim, we performed western blotting analysis that confirm this as the ERK protein was hyperphosphorylated in HER2 expressing cells compared to controls. Thus, our resource study provides many candidates that can be tested to further explore the biology.

      1. HER2 expression in MCF10A cells is insufficient in inducing tumor formation in vivo, although HER2 expression results in disrupted acini structure and colony formation in vitro (e.g. Alajati et al. 2013 Cancer Res, 73:5320-5327 cited in the manuscript). It is interesting to investigate whether this is due to the mechanisms identified in this study.

      MFC10A cells are generally difficult to transform in vivo. It is possible that mechanisms identified in our study might be responsible for lower tumourigenicity in vivo with WT HER2 compared to HER2 variants, since our study suggests activated checkpoints in high HER2 cells. It would be interesting to compare the differential impact on chromatin for the two HER2 variants too. In our system, we think the reasons why cells form abnormal morphological changes and grow colonies in vitro is a result of HER2 overexpression, which induces aberrant signalling, and this may be leading to loss of cell-to-cell contact and disruption of adhesion molecules. However, the objective of this study was to understand the early signaling to chromatin changes in in vitro cellular transformation, and changes in cell morphology are a consequential part of the process.

      1. In Figure 2C, two replicates are completely separated and replicates of each time points are not clustered together.

      We agree that the two replicates are separated into two separate groups, this was demonstrated by the PCA analysis (Supplementary Fig 1F). We grouped these samples into “early” (0h, 1h, 4h, and 7h time-points) or “late” (24h and 48h time-points) based on them clustering well into these two groups. The subsequent analysis were performed based on these groups that clustered together. However, we still showed each replicate in figure 2C to appreciate the dynamics of chromatin accessibility between each time-point, which shows clear differences in HER2 versus Control.

      Minor comments:<br /> 1. Essential experimental information, e.g. whether cells were cultured in 2D or 3D, needs to be clearly and accurately described in main text, figure legends and experimental procedures.

      The figure legends in the manuscript have now been modified to include information on cell culture type.

      1. Statistic methods are not provided. In Fig. 4D, HER2-med and HER2-high need to be compared to HER2-low group.

      Statistical analyses have been added to figure 4D and HER2-med and HER2-high have been compared to HER2-low group.

      Reviewer #2 (Significance):

      The authors propose sub-threshold low level HER2 expression activates signaling pathways and increases chromatin accessibility, which facilitates mammary epithelial cell transformation, while high HER2 expression in early stages results in decreased chromatin accessibility via unknown feedback mechanisms. It is interesting to identify which signaling and epigenetic regulators are essential to cell transformation, which feedback mechanisms prevent the transformation of HER2-amplified mammary epithelial cells, whether inactivation of such feedback mechanism indeed occurs in tumorigenesis of HER2-amplified breast cancer, and whether it is a potential therapeutic target for HER2-amplified breast cancer.

      Expertise of review: breast cancer, cell signaling, tumor microenvironment.

      We thank reviewer #2 for their time and for providing such useful feedback on our work.

      Reviewer #3 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity):

      In this paper Hayat et.al study the early transformational events that follow the activation of the oncogenic HER2 signaling pathway and its crosstalk with chromatin opening. Using an inducible in vitro model of HER2+ breast cancer they have identified that the overexpression of HER2 transforms non-tumorigenic breast epithelial cells via chromatin regulation. The study also shows that the transformative potential of the cells is inversely related their HER2 expression where the low HER2 expressing cells obtain a stem-cell like signature and increased chromatin accessibility leading to an increased transformative potential.

      Major comments:

      While the key conclusions of the paper are convincing, here are the parts of the study that need further clarification or supporting data from the authors.

      1. In Figure 1C the authors show that MCF10AHER2 cells formed complex transformed masses when grown in 3 dimensional cultures. From the figure it is evident that that the transformative potential of the HER overexpression is far more pronounced at the Day 6 and Day 9 mark. Therefore, one wonders why these time points weren’t used as the “late timepoint” in any of the sequencing studies moving forward. Can the authors comment on this choice and perform additional experiments to address the molecular changes that lead to the dramatic transformations seen at this timepoint? Since the authors have a well-established protocol in place, looking at an additional time point could be potentially feasible, provided the cells/samples have been frozen down at this stage. If unable to do so, could the authors comment on the molecular changes they would expect to see at this time point.

      In our study we primarily focused on the early events upon HER2 overexpression because the changes appear to be much more dynamic, and we hypothesised that these events are the cause of the subsequent, more pronounced featured later on. The rationale behind employing an inducible system and capturing the early changes was to identify aberrant molecular events at the earliest time possible. Indeed, numerous studies have investigated the differences between normal versus cancer cells (many of which are at later time points, that have missed the foremost aberrant molecular changes). Based on our ATAC-seq analysis at late-timepoints, 24h and 48h time-point, the number of changes in chromatin accessibility become relatively more stable as compared to early time points (supplementary figure 2A).

      1. Fig 1D the authors conclude that the overexpression of HER2 causes increased cell invasion based on the results seen in a collagen coated plate. How to the authors explain the lack of any such significant change in a Matrigel coated plate?

      To test the invasiveness of the HER2 overexpressing cells, collagen is used to increase stiffness to Matrigel. Stiffness is relevant for the type of invasion seen in these 3D cultures because it activates pathways important for invasion. We added the references to the text for clarity (PMID: 15838603 and PMID: 16472698).

      1. In Supp Fig 1D the authors use the DAVID Bioinformatics tool to identify the various signaling pathways enriched in the HER2 induced system. In addition to the MAPK pathway this analysis also shows other common cancer-related pathways (eg. The Mtor pathway) being enriched to a similar or higher extent. Can authors address why only the MAPK pathways was pursed in detail?

      HER2 is major receptor that can signal through various signalling pathways. We highlighted the MAPK pathway because it has been previously shown that MAPK cascades can modify chromatin through transcription factors and chromatin regulators Clayton and Mahadevan., 2010 (PMID:19948258). We think that when HER2 is overexpressed, it primarily signals down the MAPK pathway, resulting in the activation of transcription factors and chromatin regulators that lead to a highly accessible chromatin and ultimately contributes to transformation. To confirm this result, we did perform western blotting control analysis and found that indeed, HER2 overexpression consistently activates the MAPK pathway that shows phosphorylation of ERK but does not influence AKT phosphorylation. We can include this data in the manuscript.

      1. Figure 4B and supplementary figure 3E only show that percentage of the cells have either MUC1-ve or EpCAMlow or CD24low expression. However, Figure 4A and the corresponding text indicates that that breast stem cells are defined by a combination of MUC1-ve, EpCAMlow, and CD24low expression. If this is the case, the authors need to show the percentage of the cells within each population have an overlap of all these expression signatures, to support the claim of low HER2 expressing cells showing a more de-differentiated stem-cell like property.

      Our results confirm that upon HER2 overexpression, cells become MUC1-ve, EpCAMlow and CD24-ve, acquiring the breast stem cell signature. We did not show the CD24 expression because all the cells that were MUC1-ve and EpCAMlow were also 100% CD24-ve. We have now modified figure 4B and the figure legend to reflect this change, additionally, we added another figure (supplementary figure 4) that shows how the analysis was performed systematically.

      1. The authors also state 'other biological effects being responsible for the lower capacity in anchorage-independent growth of high HER2 expressing cells' that is shown in fig 4d. While an experimental investigation of these effects may be out of the scope of this study, the authors may consider commenting (and referencing additional literature) on the other biological effects they think may result in this phenomenon.

      We have modified the manuscript (lines 294-296) and added further explanation as to what other biological effects may be responsible for lack of colony growth in high HER2 expressing cells in lines.

      1. The authors do a great job providing details about all statistical analyses performed, however the details regarding the experimental replicates are only provided for some experiments making it difficult to infer if the experiments have been adequately replicated before concluding results. Can the authors please add the n - value for all applicable experiments in the figure legend or the methods section?

      The number of replicates has now been added to the respective figure legends.

      1. What is the scope for validation of these findings in vivo and in human samples? Could the authors please comment on this in the discussion section of the manuscript.

      The primary goal of this study was to understand the early transformational events in a simple in vitro, yet a robust model that is highly accessible. We have analysed some human samples to compare the HER2 protein expression levels. However, the findings from this manuscript could be validated in more precious models such as primary human cells, human tumours samples and in vivo in animals. We have modified the end of discussion to address these points (lines 394-399).

      Minor comments:

      1. In figure 1B the authors show a western blot analysis for HER2 expression over time while using GAPDH as a loading control. However, GADPH control seems to be unequal, especially in the 1ug/ml Dox lane. This needs to be addressed.

      We agree that there is a slight difference in the GAPDH levels in this western blot. We have carried out densitometry analysis which could be added to the supplementary data if required, to show that even though the GAPDH appears to be slightly less in the 1ug/ml of dox (last lane), it shows that HER2 levels are even greater than what appears on the blot, thereby confirming the trend we have observed in the current western blot.

      1. In figure 1C, it is unclear if the images shown are representative of the exact same spot over a 9-day period or of different spots.

      In figure 1C, the morphological regions are representative of the whole well in which the cells were growing but not the exact same spot. This is because nearly all the cells (>90%) transformed from round, organised acini to the fibroblastic, invasive morphology by day 9. We have captured multiple images of different areas in the well using confocal microscopy, and this can be added in the supplementary data.

      1. In Supplementary figure 3E, labeling the y-axis on the figure as opposed to just in the legends would make it easy for the reader.

      The figure has now been appropriately labelled.

      1. With respect to presentation: In figures involving single cell RNA sequencing and phosphoproteome analyses, highlighting the specific genes that are focused in detail on the manuscript would aid the reading process. The current format makes it difficult for the reader to spot the specific genes that are the points of focus within each heat map.

      We modified the figures concerning the phosphoproteomic analysis and scRNA-seq and have highlighted important genes for readers’ ease.

      Reviewer #3 (Significance):

      I have close to a decade's experience in working on breast cancer. In the past I focused on studying intratumor genetic heterogeneity and cell signaling pathway interactions. I am currently working on identifying novel therapeutic targets for the treatment of ER+ breast cancer. My expertise lies in understanding molecular biology of the disease. While I have worked with and understand most techniques used in this study, I would like to indicate that I do not have sufficient expertise in ATAC seq and am unable to evaluate the intricacies of this technique.

      While molecular changes that occur in HER2+ breast cancer have been highly investigated, the changes that occur at an early pre-cancerous stage of the disease aren't as well documented. The work by Hayat et al., sheds much needed light on this less documented early stage of cancer development. The past decade has shown an increased focus on epigenetic therapy with more chromatin targeting drugs entering clinic (Siklos et al., 2022). There has also been increased clinical evidence underlining the efficiency of combining epigenetic therapy and with hormonal and other anticancer therapies in solid tumors (Jin et al., 2021). Phase II clinical trials combining HDAC inhibitors with aromatase inhibitor have shown to improve clinical outcomes in patients (Yardley et al., 2013). Similarly, pre-clinical studies have shown that combination therapy with BET inhibitors improved treatment efficacy and circumvented drug resistance in fulvestrant (Feng et al., 2014) and everolimus (Bihani et al., 2015) treatments. Conclusions from the work by Hayat et.al, although based on in vitro analyses, advances this field conceptually by highlighting the importance of targeting the cell signaling and chromatin regulation together. If validated in in vivo models and clinical samples, this may open up potential possibilities of combining anti-HER2 therapies with epigenetic therapies. Additionally, the study also makes an interesting observation that low HER2 expression could result in increased tumorigenicity of cells which is in contrary to current clinical norm of looking at increased HER2 expression as a sign of aggressive disease. These findings are of interest to the scientific and clinical community working on discovering novel therapeutic targets and biomarkers for treatment of HER2+ breast cancer.

      We thank reviewer #3 for his/her overall assessment and for appreciating this work. There is a significant focus regarding low HER2 positive breast cancers in the field. Approximately 50-60% of breast cancers have "low" HER2 expression and in many cases, this low HER2 is seen together with metastatic cancer. The FDA has very recently approved fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki aka Enhertu, which appears to target these cancers with low HER2 well and is shown to be relatively effective in a phase 3 clinical trial known as Destiny Breast-04. However, it is not yet clear how low HER2 expressing cells drive the metastatic spread of breast cancers or why they are so aggressive. Our work sheds a light that increased chromatin accessibility could be a route of transformation in low HER2 cancers. Therefore, providing an alternative platform to target these cancers and why it is crucial that this work reaches the clinical and scientific community as soon as possible.

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      Referee #3

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      In this paper Hayat et.al study the early transformational events that follow the activation of the oncogenic HER2 signaling pathway and its crosstalk with chromatin opening. Using an inducible in vitro model of HER2+ breast cancer they have identified that the overexpression of HER2 transforms non-tumorigenic breast epithelial cells via chromatin regulation. The study also shows that the transformative potential of the cells is inversely related their HER2 expression where the low HER2 expressing cells obtain a stem-cell like signature and increased chromatin accessibility leading to an increased transformative potential.

      Major comments:

      While the key conclusions of the paper are convincing, here are the parts of the study that need further clarification or supporting data from the authors.

      1. In Figure 1C the authors show that MCF10AHER2 cells formed complex transformed masses when grown in 3 dimensional cultures. From the figure it is evident that that the transformative potential of the HER overexpression is far more pronounced at the Day 6 and Day 9 mark. Therefore, one wonders why these time points weren't used as the "late timepoint" in any of the sequencing studies moving forward. Can the authors comment on this choice and perform additional experiments to address the molecular changes that lead to the dramatic transformations seen at this timepoint? Since the authors have a well-established protocol in place, looking at an additional time point could be potentially feasible, provided the cells/samples have been frozen down at this stage. If unable to do so, could the authors comment on the molecular changes they would expect to see at this time point.
      2. Fig 1D the authors conclude that the overexpression of HER2 causes increased cell invasion based on the results seen in a collagen coated plate. How to the authors explain the lack of any such significant change in a Matrigel coated plate?
      3. In Supp Fig 1D the authors use the DAVID Bioinformatics tool to identify the various signaling pathways enriched in the HER2 induced system. In addition to the MAPK pathway this analysis also shows other common cancer-related pathways (eg. the mTOR pathway) being enriched to a similar or higher extent. Can authors address why only the MAPK pathways was pursed in detail?
      4. Figure 4B and supplementary figure 3E only show that percentage of the cells have either MUC1-ve or EpCAMlow or CD24low expression. However, Figure 4A and the corresponding text indicates that that breast stem cells are defined by a combination of MUC1-ve, EpCAMlow, and CD24low expression. If this is the case, the authors need to show the percentage of the cells within each population have an overlap of all these expression signatures, to support the claim of low HER2 expressing cells showing a more de-differentiated stem-cell like property.
      5. The authors also state 'other biological effects being responsible for the lower capacity in anchorage-independent growth of high HER2 expressing cells' that is shown in fig 4d. While an experimental investigation of these effects may be out of the scope of this study, the authors may consider commenting (and referencing additional literature) on the other biological effects they think may result in this phenomenon.
      6. The authors do a great job providing details about all statistical analyses performed, however the details regarding the experimental replicates are only provided for some experiments making it difficult to infer if the experiments have been adequately replicated before concluding results. Can the authors please add the n - value for all applicable experiments in the figure legend or the methods section?
      7. What is the scope for validation of these findings in vivo and in human samples? Could the authors please comment on this in the discussion section of the manuscript.

      Minor comments:

      1. In figure 1B the authors show a western blot analysis for HER2 expression over time while using GAPDH as a loading control. However, GADPH control seems to be unequal, especially in the 1ug/ml Dox lane. This needs to be addressed.
      2. In figure 1C, it is unclear if the images shown are representative of the exact same spot over a 9-day period or of different spots.
      3. In Supplementary figure 3E, labeling the y-axis on the figure as opposed to just in the legends would make it easy for the reader.
      4. With respect to presentation: In figures involving single cell RNA sequencing and phosphoproteome analyses, highlighting the specific genes that are focused in detail on the manuscript would aid the reading process. The current format makes it difficult for the reader to spot the specific genes that are the points of focus within each heat map.

      Significance

      I have close to a decade's experience in working on breast cancer. In the past I focused on studying intratumor genetic heterogeneity and cell signaling pathway interactions. I am currently working on identifying novel therapeutic targets for the treatment of ER+ breast cancer. My expertise lies in understanding molecular biology of the disease. While I have worked with and understand most techniques used in this study, I would like to indicate that I do not have sufficient expertise in ATAC seq and am unable to evaluate the intricacies of this technique.

      While molecular changes that occur in HER2+ breast cancer have been highly investigated, the changes that occur at an early pre-cancerous stage of the disease aren't as well documented. The work by Hayat et al., sheds much needed light on this less documented early stage of cancer development. The past decade has shown an increased focus on epigenetic therapy with more chromatin targeting drugs entering clinic (Siklos et al., 2022). There has also been increased clinical evidence underlining the efficiency of combining epigenetic therapy and with hormonal and other anticancer therapies in solid tumors (Jin et al., 2021). Phase II clinical trials combining HDAC inhibitors with aromatase inhibitor have shown to improve clinical outcomes in patients (Yardley et al., 2013). Similarly, pre-clinical studies have shown that combination therapy with BET inhibitors improved treatment efficacy and circumvented drug resistance in fulvestrant (Feng et al., 2014) and everolimus (Bihani et al., 2015) treatments. Conclusions from the work by Hayat et.al, although based on in vitro analyses, advances this field conceptually by highlighting the importance of targeting the cell signaling and chromatin regulation together. If validated in in vivo models and clinical samples, this may open up potential possibilities of combining anti-HER2 therapies with epigenetic therapies. Additionally, the study also makes an interesting observation that low HER2 expression could result in increased tumorigenicity of cells which is in contrary to current clinical norm of looking at increased HER2 expression as a sign of aggressive disease. These findings are of interest to the scientific and clinical community working on discovering novel therapeutic targets and biomarkers for treatment of HER2+ breast cancer.

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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      HER2 amplification is associated with poor prognosis of breast cancer. Despite it has been extensively studied, it deserves thorough study how HER2 amplification alters downstream signaling pathways, chromatin structure and gene expression, and how cells overcome the hurdles in order to transform. In this study, Hayat et al used doxycycline-induced HER2 expression in MCF10A cells to recapitulate the very early stage of HER2 expression and HER2-induced mammary epithelial cell transformation. The authors performed global phosphoproteomic, ATAC-seq and single-cell RNA-seq, and propose sub-threshold low level HER2 expression activates signaling pathways and increases chromatin accessibility required for cell transformation, while high HER2 expression level in early stages results in decreased chromatin accessibility.

      Major comments:

      1. Although it is not clearly described, it seems that phosphoproteomic and single-cell RNA-seq were performed using 2D-cultured cells, while ATAC-seq was performed using 2D (FACS sorted cells based on HER2 expression levels) or 3D (time course)-cultured cells. Cells cultured on 2D and 3D are significantly different on cell signaling, chromatin structure and gene expression, and therefore cannot be compared.
      2. Phosphoproteomic (0.5, 4 and 7 hours), ATAC-seq (1, 4, 7, 24 and 48 hours) and single-cell RNA-seq (7, 24, 48 and 72 hours) were performed on cells at different time points after doxycycline treatment. The authors need to clearly explain the rationale why such time points were chosen for each experiment in the text.
      3. Change on chromatin accessibility does not necessarily mean change on gene expression levels. RNA-seq needs to be performed and analyzed along with ATAC-seq data.
      4. Analyses on multi-omics data are quite preliminary. Clustering analysis on the time course of phosphoproteomic, ATAC-seq and single-cell RNA-seq will help characterize the dynamics of cell signaling and gene expression. Integrated analyses on multi-omics data and construction of regulatory network are necessary to identify the key signaling node and key epigenetic regulators/machinery that facilitate or prevent cell transformation. Integrated analyses, of course, need to be performed on data obtained from cells cultured in the same conditions.
      5. The authors picked up several genes from the analyses, and discussed the potential importance in cell transformation without functional validation. It is important to show data demonstrating altered expression of certain genes and/or altered activity of certain signaling pathway/epigenetic regulators is indeed important for cell transformation in low HER2-expressing condition or preventing cell transformation in high HER2-expressing condition.
      6. HER2 expression in MCF10A cells is insufficient in inducing tumor formation in vivo, although HER2 expression results in disrupted acini structure and colony formation in vitro (e.g. Alajati et al. 2013 Cancer Res, 73:5320-5327 cited in the manuscript). It is interesting to investigate whether this is due to the mechanisms identified in this study.
      7. In Figure 2C, two replicates are completely separated and replicates of each time points are not clustered together.

      Minor comments:

      1. Essential experimental information, e.g. whether cells were cultured in 2D or 3D, needs to be clearly and accurately described in main text, figure legends and experimental procedures.
      2. Statistic methods are not provided. In Fig. 4D, HER2-med and HER2-high need to be compared to HER2-low group.

      Significance

      The authors propose sub-threshold low level HER2 expression activates signaling pathways and increases chromatin accessibility, which facilitates mammary epithelial cell transformation, while high HER2 expression in early stages results in decreased chromatin accessibility via unknown feedback mechanisms. It is interesting to identify which signaling and epigenetic regulators are essential to cell transformation, which feedback mechanisms prevent the transformation of HER2-amplified mammary epithelial cells, whether inactivation of such feedback mechanism indeed occurs in tumorigenesis of HER2-amplified breast cancer, and whether it is a potential therapeutic target for HER2-amplified breast cancer.

      Expertise of review: breast cancer, cell signaling, tumor microenvironment.

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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      This study aimed to identify events that happens early in malignant transformation of breast cancer (BC) cells that are driven by HER2 oncogene. Constructing a 3D inducible model to study impact of HER2 protein level on BC cell and assessment of gross morphological changes, protein phosphorylation and chromatin accessibility at different time points of HER2 activation.

      Using a controllable in vitro model is a good approach although it is not novel. Also the method used to assess HER2 protein positivity is not standardized nor clinically relevant. Positivity of HER2 in clinical practice is assessed either through immunohistochemistry (IHC 3+ or 2+ with gene amplification), however the author did not mention any control for positivity except western blot which is not used in clinical practice.<br /> There is difference between early HER2 positive BC and HER2 low BC. As the earlier is driven by HER2 oncogenic signalling pathway, but the latter is not.

      Identification of molecular changes that occur at HER2 low BC seems very important and clinically relevant, however HER 2 low is not fully characterized, yet. And the only definition available is either HER2 1+ or 2+ without gene amplification. The author was not very clear about threshold he followed to call the model HER2 low. Is it positive with lower limit of positivity or just small amount of protein). He also concluded that BC with sub-threshold of HER2 protein behave more aggressive than HER2 positive BC. What is the threshold and was it correlated with IHC or gene amplification level to be reliable?

      The status of oestrogen and progesterone receptors were not highlighted. Triple negative breast cancer, for instance, is more aggressive than HER2 positive BC, this may be the reason for the worse behaviour.<br /> At line 130, "The low levels of HER2 protein activation at early time point may closely mimic at least partially the signalling changes occurring in HER2 positive BC patients". This claim is not quite true, as low levels of HER2 protein activation doesn't activate HER2 oncogenic signalling pathway as HER2 positive does.<br /> The author aimed to study the signalling changes accompanying low levels of HER2 induction by lowering significance threshold to log2fold > 0.5. Lowering the threshold for significance will increase the total number of phosphorylated protein (both at low HER2 levels and high levels). So, studying the whole significant proteins at whole time points will not be exclusive for low HER2 levels and this was evident through activation of MAPK cascade which is one of downstream signalling pathway of HER2 positive BC.

      Combining HER2 protein level (both IHC and Western blot) to different time points will give better understanding of events associated with HER2 low, early positive or late positive.

      Significance

      This work provides good evidence to changes that happen at early HER2 positive breast cancer transformation and introducing a chromatin opening and accessibility as a new target of treatment of HER2 positive breast cancer patients.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      Reviewer #1:

      We thank the Reviewer for stating that “Overall the article is well structured, the experiments are clearly and logically described. The data is convincing and there does not seem to be a sticking point”, and also for pointing to the fact that “This manuscript will therefore be of interest to people working in the field of readthrough, therapeutic approaches and genetic diseases, but also more generally to people studying gene translation and expression”.

      Specific comments:

      In chapter "Serum starvation increased APC nonsense-mutation readthrough in CRC cell lines", last line please replace "sratvation" by "starvation".

      The mistake has been corrected.

      In chapter "Torin-1 increases antibiotic-mediated nonsense codon readthrough" , 6 lines before the end please replace "Totin-1" by "Torin-1"

      The mistake has now been corrected.

      The following sentence in the discussion has to be rewritten because NMD degrades RNA and not proteins: "In many cases, the cancer cells express a truncated APC protein that is not degraded by the NMD as most of the nonsense mutations occur in a hotspot within the last APC exon, thus they are not recognized by the exon junction complex method of NMD [55] ".

      The sentence has been corrected and rephrased to say: “Mutated APC transcripts are often NMD-resistant as most of the nonsense mutations occur in a hotspot within the last APC exon and therefore not recognized by the exon junction complex that induces NMD”.

      Change "combitation" into "combination" 7 lines from the end of the discussion.

      The mistake has been corrected.

      Figure 5, the authors analyze the effect of an inhibition of the activity of eIF4E using the small molecule 4EGl-1. They are testing for an endogenous nonsense mutation in the APC gene in COLO320 cells. To be consistent with Figure 4, the authors should also show the same effect on SW403 cells.

      The requested missing experiment has been added to Figure 5 (Fig.5D) and the results are discussed.

      Reviewer #2:

      We thank the Reviewer for acknowledging the “nice flow of the paper” and that “The involvement of mTOR pathway in PTC RT is interesting”. We have addressed the Reviewer’s comments and added the requested experiments as follows:

      Major comments -

      1- My major concern is about the concentration of G418 that authors used in their PTC RT experiments. G418 at 1.5 mg/ml is extremely high and usually very toxic in many cell types. We have observed that in the presence of high levels of aminoglycosides, PTC RT enhances significantly at the cost of severe toxicity. Authors should be careful to avoid such toxicity. Showing the viability (live cells as well as apoptosis levels, both) in cells (stable and CRC cells) at 24 and also 48 hours post treatment (G418, Torin-1, Rapamycin and their combination) must be performed as an indicator of cellular health.

      We thank the Reviewer for raising this point. In the revised manuscript the vast majority of experiments were conducted with a lower dose of antibiotics (500ug/ml). We have used the G418 at 1.5 mg/ml only when comparing it to our previous results showing the effects of serum starvation on readthrough, where this high concentration was used [1] (Fig. 1 & Fig. S1) and when using immunofluorescent experiments on colo320 and SW403 cells (Fig. 4D). In all other experiments 500ug/ml G818 was used. We have now tested cell viability under the different treatments, using the 500ug/ml dose (Fig. S3) and demonstrate that cell survival is between 60%-100% under the different conditions. This point has now been emphasized in the revised manuscript (results section - Torin-1 increases antibiotic-mediated nonsense codon readthrough).

      2- Control cell lines (a CRC cell line without APC mutation to show WT levels of APC, and a CRC cell line with APC mutations other than PTC as negative control) must be included to the experiments. It is much better to report the level of PTC readthrough relative to WT rather than untreated mutant cells. Regarding the low level of PTC RT enhancement in combination treatment it is good to know whether these levels have any biological significance when compared to normal APC levels.

      We have now added the requested missing control cells to the manuscript (Fig. 1C): HCT116

      which harbor an b-catenin mutation (and wt APC) and SW48 expressing an APC gene with a missense mutation. In these cell lines, APC is mostly unaffected by the enhancing readthrough treatment. Please note that the endogenous expression levels of APC in these cells are higher than those achieved by restoring APC levels in Colo320 cells. Importantly, although the induced APC restoration is relatively minor, the effect on reducing active b-catenin levels is significant. The levels of induced readthrough depend on different factors such as the type of the stop codon, the surrounding sequence and the gene itself [2, 3]. As the Reviewer stated, it is important to determine what is the minimal levels of full-length protein induced by the readthrough treatment that has therapeutic effects. It has been shown that in each protein and disease, this level is different. For example, in lysosomal storage disease, even 1 % of normal protein function may restore a near-normal or clinically less severe phenotype [4, 5]. For cystic fibrosis 10 to 35 % of CFTR activity might be needed to significantly alleviate pulmonary morbidity [7] and in DMD – 1-30% of the full-length dystrophin is needed [6]. Similarly, our results indicate that even if we can restore only relatively low amounts of the APC protein [1], these_ levels may _have beneficial therapeutic effects [8]. This important point has now been added to the introduction of the revised manuscript.

      3- In the introduction section the authors mentioned that "there is increasing evidence that APC truncations may exert dominant functions contributing to colon tumorigenesis. These include enhancement of cell migration, interference with spindle formation, and induction of chromosome instability [35-38]." Usually in the course of PTC readthrough the truncated protein is also increased (Baradaran-Heravi et al, 2016, Nucleic Acids Research). In this study, in addition to full length APC authors need to show the truncated form in the CRC cell lines and find out whether this form also increases during mTOR inhibition and G418 treatment. Since the dominant function of APC truncation contributes to colon tumorigenesis, would increase in truncated protein during PTC readthrough be considered as an adverse side effect?

      We have now conducted the missing experiment. In revised Figs. 1B and S1 we show that the increase in full length APC following nonsense mutation-induced readthrough is not observed in the truncated APC protein product. Truncated APC is known to be NMD-resistant [9] and thus accumulates in cancers that originate from APC-premature termination codons. p53, on the other hand, is highly affected by NMD (as discussed in Baradaran-Heravi et al, 2016, Nucleic Acids Research) and thus nonsense mutation readthrough, which leads to prolonged ribosomal protection of the p53 transcripts, could affect the low levels of the truncated p53 protein product.

      4- I am wondering how the authors reconcile diminished translation initiation and increased PTC readthrough? What is the author's proposed model?

      We agree that this is a very important point. Our results show that 4EG1-1 that affects translation initiation, enhanced-PTC readthrough only in the presence of aminoglycosides (Fig. 5). Aminoglycosides exert their PTC readthrough activity by binding at the decoding center of the eukaryotic ribosome and reducing the ability of translation termination factors to accurately recognize the PTC [10, 11]. Similarly to our results, It has been shown that other compounds such as the small molecules CDX5-1 [12] or the drug mefloquine [13], that do not show readthrough activity when used as single agents, potentiate the readthrough activity of aminoglycoside possibly by directly targeting the translation machinery although the exact mechanism is still unclear and should be further studied. Another interesting possibility is that the effect of 4EGI-1 on PTC readthrough arises from its inhibitory effect on mTORC1 signaling which may be independent of its role in cap-dependent translation initiation [14]. This important point has now been discussed in the revised manuscript (discussion paragraph) and, although beyond the scope of the current report, we are currently conducting additional experiments to understand the exact mechanism of enhancing the activity of aminoglycosides on nonsense mutation readthrough.

      5- In figure 2C, can authors induce Gentamicin related PTC RT in TSC-/- cells by treating them with Torin-1 or Rapamycin or 4EGI-1? Please show the results.

      The requested missing data has been added to the Figure (Fig. 2) and corresponding text.

      6- Please show the APC mRNA levels in CRC cell lines and discuss its changes in different treatment combinations.

      We have now measured the APC mRNA levels under the different treated combinations and have added the results to the revised manuscript (Fig. S5). These results have been discussed (in the result section -_ Rapamycin increases antibiotic-mediated nonsense codon readthrough) _as follows: "Interestingly, although mutated APC transcripts are relatively stable, a slight increase in mRNA levels was observed in treated Colo320 cells as opposed to SW403 where mRNA transcripts were unaffected by readthrough or readthrough enhancement".

      7- It would be nice to see the effect of combination treatment on PTC RT response in other CRC cell lines they discussed in Figure 2A.

      We have now added two CRC cell lines, chosen from the group of cells where serum starvation enhances readthrough. These cells respond to the combination treatment on PTC readthrough (SW837 and SW620; Fig. S4).

      Minor comments-

      1- It would be nice to explain in more detail the GFP-BFP cell line when the authors mention it for the first time.

      A detailed explanation on the_ GFP-BFP _reporter plasmin has been added to the revised manuscript (in the results section, under the paragraph - The mTOR pathway may regulate antibiotic-induced nonsense mutation readthrough).

      2- In figure 2A, how many proteins did they end up analyzing? Please mention the number.–

      We tested 214 proteins where we had the data for all 8 cell lines examined. Out of these proteins, 8 were statistically significantly different. Out of these proteins, 4EPB-1 and its three phosphorylated forms had the most statistical significance. This information has now been added to the text.

      3- Authors mentioned that "As can be seen, Totin-1 induced APC restoration in both cell lines, though the re-expression of full-length APC was more complete in COLO320 cells". What do they mean by "complete" when they do not have WT levels of APC to compare with? Do they mean "more efficient" ?

      We apologize for the confusing terminology. We compared the readthrough activity to the null condition and not the wild-type expression. The sentence has been completely rephrased in the discussion paragraph.

      4- Please provide the full image of APC western blots to better visualize to full length and truncated forms in one blot.

      Figures 1C and S1 now show both full-length-APC and truncated APC in untreated and treated cells. Technically, due to the differences in protein sizes (90-160kDa for the truncated APC protein product in the different cell lines and full-length APC-312kDa) and the poor quality of the available antibodies, both APC forms cannot be detected on the same blot and were thus analyzed on separate gels.

      5- In figure 5, please add 4EGI-1 treatment (alone) lane for both panels. Also, please add quantification of active b-catenin for panel B.

      The experiments have been repeated and this missing data has been added to the figure and corresponding text.

      6- In the discussion it is said "As all the CRC cells that responded to mTOR inhibition<br /> by increased PTC readthrough show high levels of 4E-PB1 we conclude that inhibiting<br /> cap-dependent protein translation initiation enhances antibiotic mediated PTC<br /> readthrough". This statement is not accurate. The authors have tested only one cell line, COLO320, which has high 4E-PB1 expression and responds to mTOR inhibition in terms of increased PTC RT.

      This statement has been changed and corrected to state that: "As CRC cells that responded to mTOR inhibition by increased PTC readthrough show high levels of 4EPB-1 (Figs. 3-4 and data not shown)"

      *Referees cross-commenting*

      I appreciate reviewer #1 and #3 comments and I also agree about the nice flow of the paper. We routinely study G418 effect on PTC readthrough in many different cell lines. My major reservation is about the concentration of G418 that authors used in their PTC RT experiments. G418 at 1.5 mg/ml is extremely high and usually very toxic in many cell types. We have observed that in the presence of high levels of aminoglycosides, PTC RT enhances significantly at the cost of severe toxicity. Authors should be careful to avoid such toxicity. Showing the viability (live cells as well as apoptosis levels, both) in cells (stable and CRC cells) at 24 and also 48 hours post treatment (G418, Torin-1, Rapamycin and their combination) must be performed as an indicator of cellular health.

      Thank you for this comment. As described above in response to Reviewer #2 comments, the majority of our experiments were now conducted with a lower dose of antibiotics (500ug/ml). Although Reviewer #3 mentioned that “some cell types can tolerate those doses”, we have now tested the survival of the various treatments, using the 500ug/ml dose (Fig. S3) and demonstrated that cell death did not exceed 40% under any condition. Only viable cells were used in our experiments.

      The involvement of mTOR pathway in PTC RT is interesting; however, I am not sure about the biological value of this finding as mTOR inhibition marginally enhances aminoglycoside induced PTC RT (2-2.5-fold in COLO320 cells). Also, the number of cell lines tested in this manuscript is limited to only two CRC cell lines which makes the interpretation of the results more difficult.

      To address this important point additional CRC cell lines have now been used throughout the manuscript. As different studies show that increasing nonsense mutation readthrough levels and inducing some restoration of the full-length protein, even by small amounts could have beneficial value (please see our response to Reviewer # 2, point 2) we suggest that enhancing nonsense mutation readthrough by inhibiting the mTOR pathway may have therapeutic value. We have now emphasized in the manuscript that the different strategies for inducing readthrough (including ours) do not achieve wild-type levels and that this point needs to be considered when evaluating the therapeutic potential of this treatment strategy.

      Reviewer #3 :

      We thank the Reviewer for stating that “ This is an important finding”. We have addressed the specific Reviewer’s comments as follows:

      1) In the first paragraph of the Results Section, you use serum starvation to enhance readthrough. However, I could not find how long you maintained serum starvation, whether it was added before or concurrently to aminoglycoside addition, etc. Please clarify this point.

      We apologize for omitting this point. The treatment conditions of serum starvation have now been added to the results section and to the legend (cells were incubated for 24 h in a medium containing 10% or 1% serum supplemented with 1.5mg/ml G418).

      2) Fig. S1: I can't read the x-axis labels. Please fix this.

      The figure has been corrected (currently Fig. S2).

      3) First paragraph in the torin-1 section: you don't refer the reader to Fig 3B and 3C. I suggest that you revise the text as follows: "Next, the effect of mTOR inhibition on antibiotic-mediated endogenous APC readthrough in the CRC cell lines COLO320 (Fig. 3B) and SW403 (Fig. 3C) was examined where aminoglycosides induced relatively high levels of APC restoration”.

      The text has been revised and corrected.

      4) In figs. 3, 4 and 5, you label the panels using the cell lines COLO320 (panel B) and SW403 (panel C), but not for the APC R1450X line (panel A). The reason for this omission is not clear, but it would help the reader follow your work if you added it.

      The missing panels have now been labeled correctly.

      5) You don't mention Fig. S3 in the text of the manuscript. Please add a sentence to the last paragraph of the Results since it is important to note that 4EGI-1 does not induce readthrough alone.

      The Figure has now been mentioned and the finding that 4EGI-1 does not induce readthrough alone is now shown in Fig. 5 (please see our response to Reviewer #2, point 5, minor points section).

      *Referees cross-commenting*

      I agree that 1.5 mM G418 sounds high, but some cell types can tolerate those doses. Controls to examine toxicity seem appropriate and won't take too long. In addition, one panel showing that the mTOR inhibition also stimulate readthrough at a lower G418 dose would help to allay this concern.

      Please see our response to this point above (Reviewer #2, point 1). In the current manuscript all experiments except Fig. 1 & Fig.S1 were conducted with 500ug/ml G418.

      References

      [1] A. Wittenstein, M. Caspi, Y. David, Y. Shorer, P.T. Nadar-Ponniah, R. Rosin-Arbesfeld, Serum starvation enhances nonsense mutation readthrough, J Mol Med (Berl), 97 (2019) 1695-1710.

      [2] C. Floquet, I. Hatin, J.P. Rousset, L. Bidou, Statistical analysis of readthrough levels for nonsense mutations in mammalian cells reveals a major determinant of response to gentamicin, PLoS Genet, 8 (2012) e1002608.

      [3] L. Martorell, V. Cortina, R. Parra, J. Barquinero, F. Vidal, Variable readthrough responsiveness of nonsense mutations in hemophilia A, Haematologica, 105 (2020) 508-518.

      [4] I. Maire, Is genotype determination useful in predicting the clinical phenotype in lysosomal storage diseases?, J Inherit Metab Dis, 24 Suppl 2 (2001) 57-61; discussion 45-56.

      [5] I. Nudelman, D. Glikin, B. Smolkin, M. Hainrichson, V. Belakhov, T. Baasov, Repairing faulty genes by aminoglycosides: development of new derivatives of geneticin (G418) with enhanced suppression of diseases-causing nonsense mutations, Bioorg Med Chem, 18 (2010) 3735-3746.

      [6] M. Dabrowski, Z. Bukowy-Bieryllo, E. Zietkiewicz, Advances in therapeutic use of a drug-stimulated translational readthrough of premature termination codons, Mol Med, 24 (2018) 25.

      [7] E. Kerem, Pharmacologic therapy for stop mutations: how much CFTR activity is enough?, Curr Opin Pulm Med, 10 (2004) 547-552.

      [8] R. Kariv, M. Caspi, N. Fliss-Isakov, Y. Shorer, Y. Shor, G. Rosner, E. Brazowski, G. Beer, S. Cohen, R. Rosin-Arbesfeld, Resorting the function of the colorectal cancer gatekeeper adenomatous polyposis coli, Int J Cancer, 146 (2020) 1064-1074.

      [9] R.G. Lindeboom, F. Supek, B. Lehner, The rules and impact of nonsense-mediated mRNA decay in human cancers, Nat Genet, 48 (2016) 1112-1118.

      [10] B. Francois, R.J. Russell, J.B. Murray, F. Aboul-ela, B. Masquida, Q. Vicens, E. Westhof, Crystal structures of complexes between aminoglycosides and decoding A site oligonucleotides: role of the number of rings and positive charges in the specific binding leading to miscoding, Nucleic Acids Res, 33 (2005) 5677-5690.

      [11] N. Garreau de Loubresse, I. Prokhorova, W. Holtkamp, M.V. Rodnina, G. Yusupova, M. Yusupov, Structural basis for the inhibition of the eukaryotic ribosome, Nature, 513 (2014) 517-522.

      [12] A. Baradaran-Heravi, A.D. Balgi, C. Zimmerman, K. Choi, F.S. Shidmoossavee, J.S. Tan, C. Bergeaud, A. Krause, S. Flibotte, Y. Shimizu, H.J. Anderson, V. Mouly, E. Jan, T. Pfeifer, J.B. Jaquith, M. Roberge, Novel small molecules potentiate premature termination codon readthrough by aminoglycosides, Nucleic Acids Res, 44 (2016) 6583-6598.

      [13] M.W. Ferguson, C.A.N. Gerak, C.C.T. Chow, E.J. Rastelli, K.E. Elmore, F. Stahl, S. Hosseini-Farahabadi, A. Baradaran-Heravi, D.M. Coltart, M. Roberge, The antimalarial drug mefloquine enhances TP53 premature termination codon readthrough by aminoglycoside G418, PLoS One, 14 (2019) e0216423.

      [14] H. Wang, F. Huang, J. Wang, P. Wang, W. Lv, L. Hong, S. Li, J. Zhou, The synergistic inhibition of breast cancer proliferation by combined treatment with 4EGI-1 and MK2206, Cell Cycle, 14 (2015) 232-242.

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      Referee #3

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      In this study, the authors show that inhibition of the translation initiation-controlled by the cap-dependent (eIF4E) branch of the mTOR pathway enhances antibiotic-mediated nonsense mutation readthrough mediated by aminoglycosides. Interestingly, inhibition of this pathway in the absence of mTOR inhibitors has no effect on readthrough. These studies suggest that inhibition of this pathway may be used to enhance readthrough of disease-causing mutations.

      I suggest that the authors consider the following points to improve the manuscript:

      1. In the first paragraph of the Results Section, you use serum starvation to enhance readthrough. However, I could not find how long you maintained serum starvation, whether it was added before or concurrently to aminoglycoside addition, etc. Please clarify this point.
      2. Fig. S1: I can't read the x-axis labels. Please fix this.
      3. First paragraph in the torin-1 section: you don't refer the reader to Fig 3B and 3C. I suggest that you revise the text as follows: "Next, the effect of mTOR inhibition on antibiotic-mediated endogenous APC readthrough in the CRC cell lines COLO320 (Fig. 3B) and SW403 (Fig. 3C) was examined where aminoglycosides induced relatively high levels of APC restoration. Next, the effect of mTOR inhibition on antibiotic-mediated endogenous APC readthrough in the CRC cell lines COLO320 and SW403 was examined where aminoglycosides induced relatively high levels of APC restoration."
      4. In figs. 3, 4 and 5, you label the panels using the cell lines COLO320 (panel B) and SW403 (panel C), but not for the APC R1450X line (panel A). The reason for this omission is not clear, but it would help the reader follow your work if you added it.
      5. You don't mention Fig. S3 in the text of the manuscript. Please add a sentence to the last paragraph of the Results since it is important to note that 4EGI-1 does not induce readthrough alone.

      Referees cross-commenting

      I agree that 1.5 mM G418 sounds high, but some cell types can tolerate those doses. Controls to examine toxicity seem appropriate and won't take too long. In addition, one panel showing that the mTOR inhibition also stimulate readthrough at a lower G418 dose would help to allay this concern.

      Significance

      Overall, this manuscript demonstrates that inhibition of mTOR-dependent translation initiation by various means (serum starvation, the mTOR inhibitors torin-1 or rapamycin, or 4EGI-1) all stimulate nonsense suppression. This is an important finding.

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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      This study evaluates the involvement of mTOR pathway in premature termination codon (PTC) readthrough (RT) using cell-based assays. Initially the authors claim that similar to their previous finding serum starvation enhances aminoglycoside induced PTC RT in several cancer cell lines with APC nonsense mutations. They found association between enhanced PTC RT in serum starved cells and increased expression level of 4E-BP using DepMap data and speculated about the role of mTOR in PTC RT. Furthermore, they claim that Torin-1 or Rapamycin treatment of a stable cell line expressing an exogenous PTC construct as well as two colorectal cancer cell lines with APC nonsense mutations increased aminoglycoside induced PTC RT and suppressed active beta-catenin in CRC cells. Finally, they observed enhancement of aminoglycoside induced PTC RT by chemically inhibition of translation initiation factor eIF4E.

      Major comments:

      1. My major concern is about the concentration of G418 that authors used in their PTC RT experiments. G418 at 1.5 mg/ml is extremely high and usually very toxic in many cell types. We have observed that in the presence of high levels of aminoglycosides, PTC RT enhances significantly at the cost of severe toxicity. Authors should be careful to avoid such toxicity. Showing the viability (live cells as well as apoptosis levels, both) in cells (stable and CRC cells) at 24 and also 48 hours post treatment (G418, Torin-1, Rapamycin and their combination) must be performed as an indicator of cellular health.
      2. Control cell lines (a CRC cell line without APC mutation to show WT levels of APC, and a CRC cell line with APC mutations other than PTC as negative control) must be included to the experiments. It is much better to report the level of PTC readthrough relative to WT rather than untreated mutant cells. Regarding the low level of PTC RT enhancement in combination treatment it is good to know whether these levels have any biological significance when compared to normal APC levels.
      3. In the introduction section the authors mentioned that "there is increasing evidence that APC truncations may exert dominant functions contributing to colon tumorigenesis. These include enhancement of cell migration, interference with spindle formation, and induction of chromosome instability [35-38]."

      Usually in the course of PTC readthrough the truncated protein is also increased (Baradaran-Heravi et al, 2016, Nucleic Acids Research). In this study, in addition to full length APC authors need to show the truncated form in the CRC cell lines and find out whether this form also increases during mTOR inhibition and G418 treatment. Since the dominant function of APC truncation contributes to colon tumorigenesis, would increase in truncated protein during PTC readthrough be considered as an adverse side effect?<br /> 4. I am wondering how the authors reconcile diminished translation initiation and increased PTC readthrough? What is the author's proposed model?<br /> 5. In figure 2C, can authors induce Gentamicin related PTC RT in TSC-/- cells by treating them with Torin-1 or Rapamycin or 4EGI-1? Please show the results.<br /> 6. Please show the APC mRNA levels in CRC cell lines and discuss its changes in different treatment combinations.<br /> 7. It would be nice to see the effect of combination treatment on PTC RT response in other CRC cell lines they discussed in Figure 2A.

      Minor comments:

      1. It would be nice to explain in more detail the GFP-BFP cell line when the authors mention it for the first time.
      2. In figure 2A, how many proteins did they end up analyzing? Please mention the number.
      3. Authors mentioned that "As can be seen, Totin-1 induced APC restoration in both cell lines, though the re-expression of full-length APC was more complete in COLO320 cells". What do they mean by "complete" when they do not have WT levels of APC to compare with? Do they mean "more efficient" ?
      4. Please provide the full image of APC western blots to better visualize to full length and truncated forms in one blot.
      5. In figure 5, please add 4EGI-1 treatment (alone) lane for both panels. Also, please add quantification of active beta-catenin for panel B.
      6. In the discussion it is said "As all the CRC cells that responded to mTOR inhibition<br /> by increased PTC readthrough show high levels of 4E-PB1 we conclude that inhibiting<br /> cap-dependent protein translation initiation enhances antibiotic mediated PTC<br /> readthrough". This statement is not accurate. The authors have tested only one cell line, COLO320, which has high 4E-PB1 expression and responds to mTOR inhibition in terms of increased PTC RT.

      Referees cross-commenting

      I appreciate reviewer #1 and #3 comments and I also agree about the nice flow of the paper. We routinely study G418 effect on PTC readthrough in many different cell lines. My major reservation is about the concentration of G418 that authors used in their PTC RT experiments. G418 at 1.5 mg/ml is extremely high and usually very toxic in many cell types. We have observed that in the presence of high levels of aminoglycosides, PTC RT enhances significantly at the cost of severe toxicity. Authors should be careful to avoid such toxicity. Showing the viability (live cells as well as apoptosis levels, both) in cells (stable and CRC cells) at 24 and also 48 hours post treatment (G418, Torin-1, Rapamycin and their combination) must be performed as an indicator of cellular health.

      Significance

      The involvement of mTOR pathway in PTC RT is interesting; however, I am not sure about the biological value of this finding as mTOR inhibition marginally enhances aminoglycoside induced PTC RT (2-2.5 fold in COLO320 cells). Also, the number of cell lines tested in this manuscript is limited to only two CRC cell lines which makes the interpretation of the results more difficult.

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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      The manuscript by Wittenstein et al. aims to demonstrate that an optimization of the efficiency of readthrough induced by aminoglycosides can be obtained by inhibiting the mTOR pathway. The results presented in the manuscript show that serum starvation, inhibition of the mTOR pathway using Torin-1 or rapamycin leads to an increase in the efficiency of readthrough induced by G418. These results were shown on mRNA from a transfected construct and on endogenous mRNA coding for APC in cancer cells carrying a nonsense mutation in the APC gene. All results show an increase in readthrough induced by G418 when the mTOR pathway is impacted. Overall the article is well structured, the experiments are clearly and logically described. The data is convincing and there does not seem to be a sticking point. I would only have minor points which would make it possible to improve the reading of the manuscript and a possible additional experience in order to make figures 4 and 5 homogeneous.

      Minor comments:

      In chapter "Serum starvation increased APC nonsense-mutation readthrough in CRC cell lines" , last line please replace "sratvation" by "starvation"

      In chapter "Torin-1 increases antibiotic-mediated nonsense codon readthrough" , 6 lines before the end please replace "Totin-1" by "Torin-1"

      The following sentence in the discussion has to be rewritten because NMD degrades RNA and not proteins: "In many cases, the cancer cells express a truncated APC protein that is not degraded by the NMD as most of the nonsense mutations occur in a hotspot within the last APC exon, thus they are not recognized by the exon junction complex method of NMD [55].".

      Change "combitation" into "combination" 7 lines from the end of the discussion.

      Figure 5, the authors analyze the effect of an inhibition of the activity of eIF4E using the small molecule 4EGl-1. They are testing for an endogenous nonsense mutation in the APC gene in COLO320 cells. To be consistent with Figure 4, the authors should also show the same effect on SW403 cells.

      Significance

      The study described here shows that the efficiency of readthrough by aminoglycosides can be regulated by different parameters (serum concentration; translation efficiency). Few data are available on the regulation of this mechanism whose interest in generating new therapeutic approaches in genetic diseases is increasingly growing. This manuscript will therefore be of interest to people working in the field of readthrough, therapeutic approaches and genetic diseases, but also more generally to people studying gene translation and expression.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      Response to Reviewers:

      1. General Statements

      We thank the reviewers for the comments and the suggestions. We hope that we have addressed all the queries raised by the reviewers in the revised manuscript. We provide a point-by-point response below. Please note that the line numbers indicated in parentheses correspond to the pdf file without the track changes display.

      2. Point-by-point description of the revisions


      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      Summary: Srinivasan and co-workers developed an alternative screening method for defining the ability of FtsZ inhibitor to affect FtsZ polymerization. This alternative assay was defined considering the expertise of the authors on the topic, and they use Schizosaccharomyces pombe as a model for studying the effect of PC190723, sanguinarine and berberine on FtsZ assembly. The use of a heterologous expression system is useful for the evaluation of FtsZ coming from different strains, both Gram - and Gram +. The same model could gain insights also on the capability of FtsZ inhibitors to affect eukaryotic cell physiology. Finally, authors resulted also in suggesting a possible cause to suspected resistance to PC190723 from Gram - strains as E. coli.

      Major comments: • The conclusions are included in the discussion section and are quite convincing, for a general audience.

      We thank the reviewer for the positive comments.

      In my opinion, the authors should define which could be the limits of their method, since no data on the possible weaknesses are reported.

      RESPONSE: We have discussed the limitations of the methods as well. The discussion has been modified and the following sentences have been now included in the revised manuscript.

      “However, one of the major disadvantages of using fission yeast could be the need to use much higher concentrations of drugs than normally used for mammalian cell cultures to achieve an inhibitory effect. This could probably be due to the poor permeability of certain drugs in fission yeast because of its thick cell wall (Benko et al. 2017; Pérez and Ribas 2004). A similar effect of toxicity might arise at much lower concentrations in other eukaryotic cells, such as human cells. Consistently, while sanguinarine and berberine are known to affect the eukaryotic microtubules at 10 μΜ – 20 μM concentrations (Lopus and Panda 2006; Wang et al. 2016; Raghav et al. 2017), morphological effects on yeast cells were observed only at concentrations > 100 μM. However, yeast microtubules were not affected by berberine and sanguinarine. Differences in membrane lipid profiles and MDR efflux pumps between yeasts and mammalian cells might also contribute to differential resistance to the drugs being tested (Balzi and Goffeau 1991). Conversely, an inhibitory effect in yeast cells may not necessarily translate into toxicity in a human cell. These and the permeability of drugs in yeast cells represent an important caveat in using such heterologous expression systems for the screening of compounds against target molecules.”

      [Lines 498-513]

      As suggested in the later sections, we have also elaborated on the pros and cons of various methods including the yeast-based screening methods. [Lines 462-523]

      • No additional experiments are required to support the claims.

      • The suggested experiments could be quite easy to be realized for authors working in the microbiological field, and familiar with protein expression and purification, as well as bacteria and yeast growth.

      • From my side, even if I am not so expert in microbiology and plasmid/protein purification, the methods presented could be reproduced with no significant doubt.

      • Statistical analysis was done and seems to be adequate.

      RESPONSE: We thank the reviewer for these encouraging comments.

      Minor comments: • Prior studies should be deepened, especially for the state of art authors referred to. Additional paper, both reviews on the possible methods for evaluating FtsZ inhibition, as well as research papers on FtsZ inhibitors targeting E. coli and other Gram negative strains should be mentioned, since, in my opinion, these could move authors in changing a little bit the overall text of the manuscript.

      RESPONSE: We have now elaborated the state-of-art methods used for evaluation of FtsZ inhibition and cited the relevant papers and reviews. We have also included papers on development of FtsZ inhibitors, especially the ones similar to PC190723, targeting Gram-negative bacteria. The following sentences have been included in the revised manuscript.

      “Several approaches have been used to screen small molecules targeting bacterial cell division and FtsZ. While in vitro methods such as NMR (Domadia et al. 2007; Sun et al. 2014; Araújo‑Bazán et al. 2019) and crystallography (Läppchen et al. 2008; Fujita et al. 2017) are valuable and offer information on distinct binding sites, these are not efficient for screening. Electron microscopic examination can distinguish the effects of the compounds being tested on the FtsZ protofilament assembly and lateral associations (Nova et al. 2007; Kaul et al. 2012; Anderson et al. 2012; Sun et al. 2014; Huecas et al. 2017; Kumar et al. 2011; Park et al. 2014). Other techniques that are routinely used include fluorescence anisotropy (Ruiz‑Avila et al. 2013; Park et al. 2014), 90º light-scattering assay (Mukherjee and Lutkenhaus 1999) and dynamic light scattering (Hou et al. 2012; Di Somma et al. 2020) for assessing inhibition of FtsZ assembly (Kaul et al. 2012; Nova et al. 2007; Lui et al. 2019; Anderson et al. 2012, (Irwin et al. 2015). Other easily scalable high-throughput assays include FCS/FCCS and FRET-based methods (Hernández‑Rocamora et al. 2015; Mikuni et al. 2015; Reija et al. 2011).

      In vivo assays relying on cell filamentation phenotype coupled with the localization of Z-ring might be a good indicator of FtsZ being the direct target. However, since bacteria can undergo cell filamentation and not assemble FtsZ rings in response to a variety of conditions, including DNA damage (Mukherjee et al. 1998) and disruption of membrane potential (Strahl and Hamoen 2010), the in vivo assay is not so useful unless combined with the in vitro assays mentioned above. Finally, the isolation of resistance mutants in FtsZ to the drug can provide strong evidence of FtsZ being the direct target.

      Reconstitution systems are powerful and provide excellent control over the system, but they are emerging technologies and are technically challenging. Reconstitution systems include a variety of methods, such as the use of membrane nanodiscs, microbeads of different materials, supported bi-layer membranes (SLBs) and biomimetic systems that provide cell-like environments (Monterroso et al. 2013; Rivas et al. 2014).”

      [Lines 462-487]

      “Several compounds have been evaluated for their activity against FtsZ from both Gram-positive bacteria and Gram-negative bacteria. Although many exhibited only weak activity in vivo against Gram-negative bacteria, derivatives could be promising. These include benzamides (Haydon et al. 2008; Adams et al. 2011; Straniero et al. 2017, 2020a), trisubstituted benzimidazoles (Kumar et al. 2011), 4-bromo-1H-indazole derivatives (Wang et al. 2015), cinnamaldehyde and its derivatives (Domadia et al. 2007; Li et al. 2015), curcumin (Rai et al. 2008), heterocyclic molecules like guanidinomethyl biaryl compounds (Kaul et al. 2012), pyrimidine-quinuclidine scaffolds (Chan et al. 2013), 3-phenyl substituted 6,7-dimethoxyisoquinoline (Kelley et al. 2012), thiazole orange derivatives (Sun et al. 2017), viriditoxin (Wang et al. 2003), N-heterocycles such as zantrins and derivatives (Margalit et al. 2004; Nepomuceno et al. 2015).”

      [Lines 69-80]

      “Several efforts have been made to target Gram-negative bacteria with derivatives of benzamide. Examples include difluorobenzamides, substituted benzodioxanes, heterocyclic and non-heterocyclic derivatives (Straniero et al. 2017; Chai et al. 2020; Straniero et al. 2020a, 2020b). Although many exhibited promising activity in vitro, most were substrates for the AcrAB class of efflux pumps (Chai et al. 2020; Kaul et al. 2014; Straniero et al. 2020a, 2020b; Casiraghi et al. 2020). Thus, the poor membrane permeability, signature outer membrane, particularly lipopolysaccharide (LPS) structure (Wang et al. 2021), the presence of multiple efflux pumps in species such as E. coli, Klebsiella pneumonia and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (Piddock 2006), and differences in FtsZ sequences in the binding-site (Kaul et al. 2013b; Miguel et al. 2015) have been cited as reasons for lack of susceptibility of Gram-negative bacteria to benzamide derivatives (Casiraghi et al. 2020). More recently, two molecules, TXA6101 and TXY6129, with substituted 2,6-difluorobenzamide scaffold, have been shown to inhibit the polymerization of both E. coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae FtsZ. Moreover, despite being substrates for efflux pumps, TXA6101 induced morphological changes in K. pneumoniae (Rosado‑Lugo et al. 2022). Studies in the past on the effects of PC190723 on E. coli have been confusing, with a few reports suggesting an effect on FtsZ polymerization resulting in cell filamentation (Kaul et al. 2014), while others did not find any effect on EcFtsZ (Andreu et al. 2010; Anderson et al. 2012; Khare et al. 2019)⁠. The outer membrane has been shown to be a permeability barrier for PC190723 in E. coli (Khare et al. 2019; Chai et al. 2020). In addition, the Resistance-Nodulation-Division (RND) family of efflux pumps has been attributed to resistance against 2,6-difluorobenzamide derivatives, including TX436 (a prodrug of PC190723) in Gram-negative bacteria (Kaul et al. 2014).”

      [Lines 527-550]

      The whole text requires a deep check for grammar and word choice. Some sentences should be re-written since it is not so easy to understand their meaning. Figures are clear, even if I am not so convinced on the need of including Figure 1.

      RESPONSE: We have now deleted Figure 1 and 2 (as also suggested by Reviewer #2), revised the manuscript and have re-written certain long sentences. We have used Grammarly to check for grammatical errors. We hope the manuscript is easier to follow with these changes.

      Reviewer #1 (Significance (Required)):

      • In my opinion, the outcome coming from this work could move researchers in evaluating an alternative method for assessing FtsZ inhibition. Nevertheless, the actual state of art, a few reviews of the last years confirm this, already underlined a huge number of possible assays, both microbiological, biochemical, biophysical, physiological, or other. As a result, the authors did not result in convincing me about the importance of their methods, when compared to others. They may include some other possible assays and comment of the differences, pros and cons.

      RESPONSE: Several alternative methods have been evaluated and several excellent reviews published in the recent past have underlined the importance of these multiple methods to screen and validate small molecules targeting FtsZ. As suggested by the reviewer here and above, we have now discussed these methods including the yeast-based assay we describe, their advantages and limitations in the revised manuscript.

      The following lines have now been included in Introduction.

      “Several methods have been used to ascertain FtsZ as the target of the drug, and the various approaches have been reviewed in detail by many (Kusuma et al. 2019; Silber et al. 2020; Zorrilla et al. 2021; Andreu et al. 2022). Andreu et al. (2022) have recently proposed a streamlined experimental protocol for the screening and characterization of FtsZ inhibitors.”

      Introduction – [Lines 113-117]

      The following paragraphs, including ones as mentioned above have included in the discussion sections of the revised manuscript.

      “Several approaches have been used to screen small molecules targeting bacterial cell division and FtsZ. While in vitro methods such as NMR (Domadia et al. 2007; Sun et al. 2014; Araújo‑Bazán et al. 2019) and crystallography (Läppchen et al. 2008; Fujita et al. 2017) are valuable and offer information on distinct binding sites, these are not efficient for screening. Electron microscopic examination can distinguish the effects of the compounds being tested on the FtsZ protofilament assembly and lateral associations (Nova et al. 2007; Kaul et al. 2012; Anderson et al. 2012; Sun et al. 2014; Huecas et al. 2017; Kumar et al. 2011; Park et al. 2014). Other techniques that are routinely used include fluorescence anisotropy (Ruiz‑Avila et al. 2013; Park et al. 2014), 90º light-scattering assay (Mukherjee and Lutkenhaus 1999) and dynamic light scattering (Hou et al. 2012; Di Somma et al. 2020) for assessing inhibition of FtsZ assembly (Kaul et al. 2012; Nova et al. 2007; Lui et al. 2019; Anderson et al. 2012, (Irwin et al. 2015). Other easily scalable high-throughput assays include FCS/FCCS and FRET-based methods (Hernández‑Rocamora et al. 2015; Mikuni et al. 2015; Reija et al. 2011).

      In vivo assays relying on cell filamentation phenotype coupled with the localization of Z-ring might be a good indicator of FtsZ being the direct target. However, since bacteria can undergo cell filamentation and not assemble FtsZ rings in response to a variety of conditions, including DNA damage (Mukherjee et al. 1998) and disruption of membrane potential (Strahl and Hamoen 2010), the in vivo assay is not so useful unless combined with the in vitro assays mentioned above. Finally, the isolation of resistance mutants in FtsZ to the drug can provide strong evidence of FtsZ being the direct target.

      Reconstitution systems are powerful and provide excellent control over the system, but they are emerging technologies and are technically challenging. Reconstitution systems include a variety of methods, such as the use of membrane nanodiscs, microbeads of different materials, supported bi-layer membranes (SLBs) and biomimetic systems that provide cell-like environments (Monterroso et al. 2013; Rivas et al. 2014). While in vitro biochemical assays and reconstitution systems are useful to find molecules that directly target FtsZ, they are cumbersome and need to be performed at optimal physiological pH and ionic conditions, which can be considerably variable among FtsZ from different species.

      Our results on the ability of sanguinarine and berberine to specifically affect the assembly of FtsZ and not MreB in fission yeast highlight the utility of the heterologous expression system as a platform to identify molecules that specifically affect FtsZ polymerization. The yeast platform offers a cellular context mimicking the cytoplasm for cytoskeletal assembly. The system is simple to replicate in any laboratory, including those focused on chemical synthesis with minimum microbiological expertise and can be easily reproduced and scaled up as well. However, one of the major disadvantages of using fission yeast could be the need to use much higher concentrations of drugs than normally used for mammalian cell cultures to achieve an inhibitory effect. This could probably be due to the poor permeability of certain drugs in fission yeast because of its thick cell wall (Benko et al. 2017; Pérez and Ribas 2004). A similar effect of toxicity might arise at much lower concentrations in other eukaryotic cells, such as human cells. Consistently, while sanguinarine and berberine are known to affect the eukaryotic microtubules at 10 μΜ – 20 μM concentrations (Lopus and Panda 2006; Wang et al. 2016; Raghav et al. 2017), morphological effects on yeast cells were observed only at concentrations > 100 μM. However, yeast microtubules were not affected by berberine and sanguinarine. Differences in membrane lipid profiles and MDR efflux pumps between yeasts and mammalian cells might also contribute to differential resistance to the drugs being tested (Balzi and Goffeau 1991). Conversely, an inhibitory effect in yeast cells may not necessarily translate into toxicity in a human cell. These and the permeability of drugs in yeast cells represent an important caveat in using such heterologous expression systems for the screening of compounds against target molecules. However, notwithstanding this caveat, the heterologous system provides significant advantages in assessing the direct effects of the drug on FtsZ assembly. Moreover, fission yeast-based high-throughput platform screening methods using imaging have been successfully adapted to the screening of drugs against HIV-1 proteases by large-scale screening facilities such as the NIH Molecular Libraries Probe Production Centers Network in the Molecular Libraries Program, leading to several candidate drugs (Benko et al. 2017, 2019).”

      Discussion - [Lines 462-519]

      “A powerful emerging technique based on cytological profiling has been successfully used to identify the cellular pathways targeted by the inhibitors (Nonejuie et al. 2013; Martin et al. 2020), including cell division inhibition by FtsZ (Araújo‑Bazán et al. 2016). The recent advances in computational image analysis and deep learning approaches (von Chamier et al. 2021; Spahn et al. 2022) could further advance image-based screening for FtsZ inhibitors (Andreu et al. 2022).”

      Discussion – [Lines 581-586]

      As I mentioned before, there are a lot of reviews including the possible tests to perform for assessing FtsZ inhibition. A recent one was not cited, but, from my side, it should be mentioned (10.3390/antibiotics10030254).

      The suggested article is an excellent review that in addition to providing an overview of the state-of-art methods currently in practice for screening drugs targeting FtsZ, also suggests other emerging technologies suitable for assay development. We had cited this article (Zorrilla et al., 2021; doi: 10.3390/antibiotics10030254) in other contexts in our original manuscript but inadvertently missed in the text while mentioning the methods for screening.

      We have now cited Zorrilla et al., 2021 at all appropriate places in the revised manuscript. In addition, we have also cited (Monterroso 2013; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ymeth.2012.12.014); (Rivas 2014; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cbpa.2014.07.018); Kusuma 2019 (doi: 10.1021/acsinfecdis.9b00055); Schaffner-Barbero 2012 (doi: 10.1021/cb2003626); Silber et al 2020 (doi: 10.2217/fmb-2019-0348); Li et al., 2015 (doi: 10.1016/j.ejmech.2015.03.026); Casiraghi et al 2020 (doi: 10.3390/antibiotics9020069); Andreu et al., 2022 (10.3390/biomedicines10081825)

      Moreover, I think authors should reconsidered novel research papers, in which researchers evaluated the reason behind the apparent inactivity of benzamide derivatives, similar to PC190723, towards Gram negative strains.

      RESPONSE: Several novel papers that have reported reason for the inactivity of benzamide derivatives towards Gram-negative bacteria, including PC190723 have now been cited. The following sentences have been now included in the revised manuscript.

      “Several efforts have been made to target Gram-negative bacteria with derivatives of benzamide. Examples include difluorobenzamides, substituted benzodioxanes, heterocyclic and non-heterocyclic derivatives (Straniero et al. 2017; Chai et al. 2020; Straniero et al. 2020a, 2020b). Although many exhibited promising activity in vitro, most were substrates for the AcrAB class of efflux pumps (Chai et al. 2020; Kaul et al. 2014; Straniero et al. 2020a, 2020b; Casiraghi et al. 2020). Thus, the poor membrane permeability, signature outer membrane, particularly lipopolysaccharide (LPS) structure (Wang et al. 2021), the presence of multiple efflux pumps in species such as E. coli, Klebsiella pneumonia and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (Piddock 2006), and differences in FtsZ sequences in the binding-site (Kaul et al. 2013b; Miguel et al. 2015) have been cited as reasons for lack of susceptibility of Gram-negative bacteria to benzamide derivatives (Casiraghi et al. 2020). More recently, two molecules, TXA6101 and TXY6129, with substituted 2,6-difluorobenzamide scaffold, have been shown to inhibit the polymerization of both E. coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae FtsZ. Moreover, despite being substrates for efflux pumps, TXA6101 induced morphological changes in K. pneumoniae (Rosado‑Lugo et al. 2022). Studies in the past on the effects of PC190723 on E. coli have been confusing, with a few reports suggesting an effect on FtsZ polymerization resulting in cell filamentation (Kaul et al. 2014), while others did not find any effect on EcFtsZ (Andreu et al. 2010; Anderson et al. 2012; Khare et al. 2019)⁠. The outer membrane has been shown to be a permeability barrier for PC190723 in E. coli (Khare et al. 2019; Chai et al. 2020). In addition, the Resistance-Nodulation-Division (RND) family of efflux pumps has been attributed to resistance against 2,6-difluorobenzamide derivatives, including TX436 (a prodrug of PC190723) in Gram-negative bacteria (Kaul et al. 2014).”

      [Lines 527-550]

      Researchers working on FtsZ inhibitors could be interested in this paper, especially microbiologists.

      I specifically work on the design, synthesis and evaluation of the microbiological assays performed by others on my compounds.

      ========================================================================

      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      Dr. Srinivasin and colleagues previously developed a system where they expressed bacterial FtsZ in yeast and showed that it could assemble into polymers related to the Z rings. Here they develop this system further as a way to assay for drugs that may poison FtsZ, which would be candidates for new antibiotics. They test three drugs against three species of FtsZ. The results suggest that this system should be useful in screening new drugs that may target FtsZ. I would recommend publication after addressing a number of concerns and apparent contradictions.

      Fig. 1 showing chemical formulas of the drugs, and Fig. 2 showing a schematic of the yeast expression system, are probably not needed.

      RESPONSE: Reviewer #1 had also made a similar suggestion and we have now deleted these two figures (Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 in the older version).

      The authors make a point that sanguinarine and berberine inhibit eukaryote cell morphology. In fact, what they show is that they affect yeast cell morphology. This may or may not extend to other eukaryotes. Also, other eukaryotic cells may be more sensitive to drugs than yeast. They should me more conservative in this claim that the system also screens for drugs effects on eukaryotes.

      RESPONSE: We agree with the reviewer’s suggestions here that other eukaryotic cells may be more sensitive to drugs than yeast. We have modified the statements pertaining to these claims in the revised manuscript.

      We have made the following changes in the revised version.

      The title of the manuscript has been now modified as “A salt bridge-mediated resistance mechanism to FtsZ inhibitor PC190723 revealed by a cell-based screen”.

      Lines 23-24 in the abstract has been modified to read as “The strategy also allows for simultaneous assessment of the toxicity of the drugs to eukaryotic yeast cells.”

      Other sentences modified in the revised version are:

      “We find that although sanguinarine and berberine affected FtsZ polymerization, they also affected yeast cell physiology”. [Lines 146-147]

      “In this study, we have attempted to develop a cell-based assay using fission yeast (S. pombe) as a heterologous expression host, which would enable the screening of compounds that could directly affect FtsZ polymerization as well as identify potential toxicity to yeast (or eukaryotic) cells simultaneously”. [Lines 444-447]

      “However, one of the major disadvantages of using fission yeast could be the need to use much higher concentrations of drugs than normally used for mammalian cell cultures to achieve an inhibitory effect. This could probably be due to the poor permeability of certain drugs in fission yeast because of its thick cell wall (Benko et al. 2017; Pérez and Ribas 2004). A similar effect of toxicity might arise at much lower concentrations in other eukaryotic cells, such as human cells”. [Lines 498-503]

      “Conversely, an inhibitory effect in yeast cells may not necessarily translate into toxicity in a human cell. These and the permeability of drugs in yeast cells represent an important caveat in using such heterologous expression systems for the screening of compounds against target molecules”. [Lines 510-513]

      Fig. 3 has some new structural data that should be explored more quantitatively. My quick measurement gave 0.5 and 0.8 µm for the outside diameters of Ec and Sa rings. The spirals of Hp seem to be 0.8 µm outside diameter, similar to SA rings. These spirals may be related to those reported by Popp and by Andreu under certain buffer conditions. This should be explored and referenced.

      RESPONSE: We have now quantitatively measured the diameters of the rings formed by EcFtsZ and SaFtsZ and the diameter and pitch of the spiral polymers of HpFtsZ. These have been now included in the results section and presented as a graph in a new figure (Supplementary Fig. S2). Please also note that the scale bar in Figure 1 (previously Figure 3) was erroneously marked as 5 µm. This has been corrected in the revised version to 2.5 µm.

      Also, the possibility that these spiral polymers may be related to those described by Popp and Andreu have been discussed. We included the following sentences in the discussion.

      “Previous studies have shown that various factors such as molecular crowding, variable C-terminal regions and bound nucleotide state lead to the formation of supramolecular structures like twisted helical structures, toroids and rings similar to those that have been observed in vivo (Popp et al. 2009; Huecas et al. 2017). Thus, the molecular crowding due to the dense cytoplasm of the yeast cells could have possibly induced the spiral and ring-like assembly of FtsZ polymers (Erickson et al. 2010).”

      [Lines 456-461]

      But Fig. 4 presents a contradiction. Here the Hp control cells show long smooth polymers, not helical. This seems an important difference and needs to be addressed. Are the polymers sometimes straight and sometimes helical? After finishing the paper I see that in some experiments the HP is helical, and in others the polymers are straight and smooth. I think it would be important to determine what favors the two forms. If this remains a mystery, at least address it openly.

      RESPONSE: This was definitely an oversight from the authors. We should have clearly mentioned this in the manuscript but completely missed the description of different polymers assembled by HpFtsZ.

      We have now described this clearly in the results and added a new Figure (Supplementary Fig. S1) showing a time course for the appearance of spiral and linear polymers. We have also replaced the images in Figure 5E.

      We have modified the results to read as:

      “Interestingly, HpFtsZ assembled into linear cable-like structures as well as twisted polymers that were curled and spiral in appearance (Fig. 1D). The spiral filaments were more clearly visualized by deconvolution of the images (Fig. 1D iii and 1E). Further, super-resolution imaging using 3D-SIM clearly revealed that HpFtsZ assembles into spiral filaments in fission yeast (Fig. 1F).”

      [Lines 171-175]

      We have also added the following lines in the results section:

      “Spiral polymers appeared early, at 16 – 18 hours after induction of expression (absence of thiamine), and linear cables appeared later at 20 – 22 hours (Fig. S1). The smooth linear polymers possibly arise from lateral association and bundling of FtsZ filaments (Monahan et al. 2009), but the factors determining the two forms in yeast cells remain unclear.”

      [Lines 175-179]

      I am concerned that the quantitation of drug inhibition in Fig 4, 5 is flawed. Visually from 4A it looks like ~90-100% of control cells have polymers, and sang reduces polymers by 70% for Sa and Ec and 100% for Hp: this is based on the number of spots and filaments I see in Fig. 4 Aii. But the quantitation in D shows only 17-23% reduction for all three. These numbers were based on determining the fraction of cells that showed polymer (spots or lines) vs diffuse. It seems that cells are counted as containing polymer even if they had a great reduction in spots or lines, but still had a few. E.g., 4Aii Sa has 4 cells, two of them with no spots, one with only 2, and one with ~7, which totals ~1/3 the spots in control cells. Categorizing cells with only a couple of spots as polymerized, seems to be a poor way to quantitate. Would it not be better to count all spots in all cells, or measure the total length of line polymers, as a measure of inhibition.

      RESPONSE: We agree with the reviewer here that number of spots or the length of the polymers would be a better quantitative measure of the effect of the drugs than the percentage of cells presented. In the revised manuscript, we now present quantified data as suggested.

      We have quantitated the number of spots per cell for SaFtsZ and total polymer length per cell for HpFtsZ to elucidate the effect of drugs on FtsZ polymers. The number of spots per cell were counted using built-in ImageJ macro OPS threshold IJ1 script which combines the otsu thresholding method and analyse particles plugin. The total polymer length per cell in the case HpFtsZ, was measured using used the lpx-plugins as described by Higaki (Higaki et al., 2017).

      In addition, using the lpx-plugins, we also quantify density, a measure of the amount cytoskeleton per unit area in a given cell (Henty-Ridilla et al., 2014; Higaki et al., 2017). We had previously used this measure successfully to quantify assembly of Spiroplasma citri MreB in fission yeast (Pande et al., 2022).

      The methodology has been described in detail in the Materials and Methods section under the heading – “Quantitation of the number of spots, polymer length and density”

      Lines [665-689]

      The new data has been included in the results (lines 207-231 and 275-284) and new Figures (Fig. 2 E, G and Fig. 3 G, H) have been added.

      Fig. 5 makes a convincing case that PC19 accelerates or enhances the polymerization of Sa and Hp. Fig. S2 shows that the structures of polymers are not changed when PC19 is added at 20 hrs, after polymers have already formed. It would have been nice to see for both 5A and S2A that the round spots had holes in the center, when imaged by SIM. Again the quantitation of cells as polymer vs diffuse seems ill suited, because it misses cells with a reduced number of spots.

      RESPONSE: We have imaged the FtsZ polymers of Sa and Hp in the presence of PC190723 using SIM and included these images as new panels in the figures. Figure 3C, 3F and Figure S4 in the revised manuscript.

      Again, for Figure 5 (Fig. 3 in the revised version), we have provided the quantitation as number of spots per cell, polymer length per cell and density (amount of cytoskeleton per unit area) as described above (new Figures - Fig. 3 G, H) in the revised manuscript.

      [Lines 275-284]

      Fig. 6 uses FRAP to show that PC reduces the dynamic exchange of Sa polymers by a factor of 3. It is remarkable to me that rapid exchange is not completely eliminated by PC. Regardless, it would be very important to reference the previous study of Adams..Errington 2011, where they showed the same thing for Foci in Bacillus. PC19 reduced the exchange from 3 to 10 s, but the foci were still very dynamic.

      RESPONSE: We had referenced this work in the original submission in the discussion section – “These results are also consistent with the earlier findings that PC190723 acts to induce FtsZ polymerization and stabilize FtsZ filaments (Andreu et al. 2010; Elsen et al. 2012; Miguel et al. 2015; Fujita et al. 2017) and its derivative compound, 8j acting to slow down FtsZ-ring turnover by 3-fold in B. subtilis (Adams et al. 2011).”

      [Lines 563-567] in revised manuscript

      We have now added the following statement and referenced Adams et al., 2011 in the results section as well.

      “Interestingly, compound 8j, a related benzamide derivative, has been shown to slow down FtsZ-ring turnover by 3-fold in B. subtilis (Adams et al. 2011).”

      [Lines 324-326]

      The analysis of the salt bridge as opposed to a single Arg or His being the cause of resistance to PC19 is an interesting addition to the study. In Fig. 8D some numbers do not agree between the caption and figure (R309/7; S226/7). The whole figure should be carefully checked.

      RESPONSE: We thank the reviewer for pointing to these. We have corrected these errors now in the revised version (Fig. 6).

      I am not familiar with the Gram -ve and Gram +ve nomenclature. Why not simply gram- and gram+?

      RESPONSE: We agree that Gram -ve / +ve are not standard notations and inappropriate.

      We have now written them as Gram-negative and Gram-positive throughout the text.

      The Discussion is quite long largely because it repeats items from Results and Introduction. It is also redundant to hype the value of this system in both Introduction and Discussion; The Introduction should be sufficient. The Discussion should be pared down by eliminating repetition and focusing on relating results to previous literature, in particular items that have not been referenced previously in the paper. Also, I think we don't need the final "In summary" paragraph. That is already nicely presented in the Abstract.

      RESPONSE: We have omitted the repetitive statements from the discussion. We have also deleted the final summary paragraph. We had added new paragraphs [lines 462-519] pertaining to previous literature (also suggested by Reviewer #1) to the discussion section in the revised manuscript.

      The authors should probably provide references to other studies that have used yeast expression to study assembly of FtsZ. I am thinking in particular of papers from the Osteryoung lab looking at chloroplast FtsZ.

      RESPONSE: We have now referenced other papers that have used yeast expression to study assembly of FtsZ.

      The following statement has been added to the introduction:

      “Moreover, the dynamics of chloroplast FtsZs have also been successfully studied using the heterologous fission yeast expression system (TerBush and Osteryoung 2012; Yoshida et al. 2016; TerBush et al. 2018).”

      Lines [132-134]

      NO PAGE NUMBERS. Authors should be penalized a week delay for submitting a mss without page numbers.

      RESPONSE: We sincerely apologise for this gross error and oversight and thank the reviewer for patiently reading through and reviewing a manuscript with no page numbers and line numbers. We are truly sorry for having submitted a manuscript as such and have now included page numbers and line numbers in the manuscript.

      Reviewer #2 (Significance (Required)):

      This work should be of interest to the broad field of research on FtsZ. The authors present it as a new platform for assaying drugs targeting FtsZ, and researchers in this area will certainly be interested. It will also be of broader interest for the novel assay of assembly and exchange dynamics and how they may be modulated by small molecules.

      ========================================================================

      Reviewer #3 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      Summary: The authors established a proof-of-concept assay to investigate the bacterial cytoskeletal protein FtsZ in fission yeast, and this heterologous yeast system is useful for compounds identification targeting FtsZ. The authors used this system to understand the mechanism of FtsZ's resistance to drug PC190723. Major comments: 1. From the study, the pombe seems to be a good system for investigating the bacterial cytoskeleton proteins and testing the drugs for them. However, to my knowledge it is not convincing that this is the proper system can be used to assessing the eukaryotic toxicity, since no toxicity to pombe does not mean no toxicity to human cells and vice versa.

      RESPONSE: We agree with the reviewer that toxicity to S. pombe cannot be directly extended to assessing toxicity to other eukaryotic cells such as human cells. As suggested by Reviewer#2 as well, we have modified these claims in the revised manuscript, discussed the possibilities and limited the scope of this work to assessing toxicity in yeast cells.

      We have made the following changes in the revised version.

      The title of the manuscript has been now modified as “A salt bridge-mediated resistance mechanism to FtsZ inhibitor PC190723 revealed by a cell-based screen”.

      Lines 23-24 in the abstract has been modified to read as “The strategy also allows for simultaneous assessment of the toxicity of the drugs to eukaryotic yeast cells.”

      Other sentences modified in the revised version are:

      “We find that although sanguinarine and berberine affected FtsZ polymerization, they also affected yeast cell physiology”. [Lines 146-147]

      “In this study, we have attempted to develop a cell-based assay using fission yeast (S. pombe) as a heterologous expression host, which would enable the screening of compounds that could directly affect FtsZ polymerization as well as identify potential toxicity to yeast (or eukaryotic) cells simultaneously”. [Lines 444-447]

      “However, one of the major disadvantages of using fission yeast could be the need to use much higher concentrations of drugs than normally used for mammalian cell cultures to achieve an inhibitory effect. This could probably be due to the poor permeability of certain drugs in fission yeast because of its thick cell wall (Benko et al. 2017; Pérez and Ribas 2004). A similar effect of toxicity might arise at much lower concentrations in other eukaryotic cells, such as human cells”. [Lines 498-503]

      “Conversely, an inhibitory effect in yeast cells may not necessarily translate into toxicity in a human cell. These and the permeability of drugs in yeast cells represent an important caveat in using such heterologous expression systems for the screening of compounds against target molecules”. [Lines 510-513]

      From figure 4A to 4C, there seems no big difference of cell morphology between control and drug treatment, except for Berberine treatment of SaFtsZ-GFP. Under the low concentration of Sanguinarine (20 µM) and Berberine (53.791 µm), the FtsZ polymerization was disrupted and seems no effect on cell morphology. Why would the authors use much higher Sanguinarine (135.95 µM) and Berberine (134.45 µM) to prove there two drugs are toxic to pombe cells?

      RESPONSE: Earlier reports had shown that sanguinarine and berberine affect mammalian microtubules (Lopus and Panda 2006 - DOI: 10.1111/j.1742-4658.2006.05227.x; Raghav et al., 2017 - DOI: 10.1021/acs.biochem.7b00101). While, we did not observe any growth defect in yeast cells, earlier studies have suggested that yeasts possibly require higher concentrations of certain drugs than used for mammalian cells due to the presence of the cell wall, particularly S. pombe (Perez and Ribas 2004 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ymeth.2003.11.020; Benko et al., 2017 - DOI: 10.1186/s13578-016-0131-5). We had thus explored the possibility of cell toxicity to yeast cells at higher concentrations of the drugs.

      The following lines have thus been added to the results section in the revised manuscript.

      “Although we did not observe any growth defect in yeast cells at lower concentrations of the drugs, earlier studies have suggested that yeast cells possibly require higher concentrations of drugs than used for mammalian cells due to the presence of the cell wall, which is particularly thick in S. pombe (Benko et al. 2017; Pérez and Ribas 2004). We thus explored the possibility of cell toxicity to yeast cells at higher concentrations of the drugs.”

      Lines [234-239]

      Sanguinarine and Berberine are FtsZ disruption drugs, do these drugs have effect on microtubule?

      RESPONSE: We have now examined the effect of Sanguinarine and Berberine on yeast microtubules as well and did not find any visible differences between the control and inhibitor (either low or high concentrations) treated cells. This data has been added as a new figure (Supplementary Fig. S3 A and B) in the revised manuscript and the following line added to the results.

      “However, even at higher concentrations, neither of the drugs showed any visible effect on yeast microtubules (Fig. S3 A and B).”

      [Lines 241-242]

      The discussion has been modified as follows:

      “However, one of the major disadvantages of using fission yeast could be the need to use much higher concentrations of drugs than normally used for mammalian cell cultures to achieve an inhibitory effect. This could probably be due to the poor permeability of certain drugs in fission yeast because of its thick cell wall (Benko et al. 2017; Pérez and Ribas 2004). A similar effect of toxicity might arise at much lower concentrations in other eukaryotic cells, such as human cells. Consistently, while sanguinarine and berberine are known to affect the eukaryotic microtubules at 10 μΜ – 20 μM concentrations (Lopus and Panda 2006; Wang et al. 2016; Raghav et al. 2017), morphological effects on yeast cells were observed only at concentrations > 100 μM. However, yeast microtubules were not affected by berberine and sanguinarine. Differences in membrane lipid profiles and MDR efflux pumps between yeasts and mammalian cells might also contribute to differential resistance to the drugs being tested (Balzi and Goffeau 1991). Conversely, an inhibitory effect in yeast cells may not necessarily translate into toxicity in a human cell. These and the permeability of drugs in yeast cells represent an important caveat in using such heterologous expression systems for the screening of compounds against target molecules.”

      [Lines 498-513]

      There are very few SaFtsZ-GFP dot structure in fig 5B, and this is inconsistent with the SaFtsZ-GFP dot structure in fig 4A. Fig 5D has the same issue compare to Fig 4Ci

      RESPONSE: We had probably not made it very clear the experimental differences between Figure 4 and 5 (Figure 2 and 3 in the revised manuscript), which has led to this apparent inconsistency.

      The strong nmt1 promoter (thiamine repressible) takes about 18 hours for full-induction in the absence of thiamine (Forsburg 1993 - https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/21.12.2955). We have utilised the medium strength nmt41 promoter in our studies and hence, in Figure 2, expression of FtsZ-GFP fusions were allowed for longer periods of time (22 – 24 hours) in the experiments concerning sanguinarine and berberine treatments.

      This has been now clearly mentioned in the revised version of the manuscript in the results section (lines 196-199) as well as in figure legends.

      In contrast the very few dot structures or polymers in Figure 3 (revised manuscript) is because of a shorter period of expression of FtsZ-GFP (12 – 14 hours in the absence of thiamine). The shorter period of expression time in these experiments allowed us to test if PC190723 indeed induced the polymerisation of FtsZ, at a stage when the control cells still exhibited diffuse fluorescence and had minimal FtsZ assembly. Thus, the cultures were allowed to express FtsZ for a shorter period of time and imaged in the case of experiments presented in Figure 3.

      This has been now clearly mentioned in the results (lines 259-263) as well as in figure legends in the revised manuscript.

      We hope that we have now made these experimental differences clear and provide more clarity. We have also included this information (hours of induction) in the figure panel.

      The concentration of PC190723 the author used is 20 µg/ml, which is enough for disrupting FtsZ function, however according to the Sanguinarine and Berberine experiments, the author may use higher concentration of PC190723 to assess its toxicity to pombe cells. Same as Sanguinarine and Berberine, does PC190723 has effect on microtubule?

      RESPONSE: As suggested by the reviewer, we have tested the effect of PC190723 at a higher concentration (140.6 µM) similar to that of Sanguinarine and Berberine. We did not find any morphological changes in yeast upon treatment with higher concentrations of PC190723. Also, the drug did not seem to affect the yeast microtubules. These have been now included in the results section and new images have been added in the figure (Supplementary Fig. S3).

      The following lines have been added in the revised manuscript to the results section:

      “Earlier studies had reported that PC190723 was non-toxic to eukaryotic cells, including budding yeast (Haydon et al. 2008). We further tested if PC190723 resulted in morphological defects in S. pombe, like sanguinarine and berberine, at higher concentrations. However, consistent with the earlier reports, PC190723 was inactive against S. pombe at both 56.2 μM and 140.6 μM and did not cause any morphological changes (Fig. 2H iv). Further, PC190723 did not disrupt the yeast microtubules at either of the concentrations (Fig. S3 A iv and B iv).”

      [Lines 294-300]

      The authors mentioned much higher concentrations of drugs than normally used for mammalian cell cultures have to be used for fission yeast. Is there any criterion for this?

      RESPONSE: In the discussion section, we had mentioned that “Much higher concentrations of drugs than normally used for mammalian cell cultures have to be used for fission yeast probably due to permeability issues because of the presence of a thick cell wall (Benko 2017 - DOI: 10.1186/s13578-016-0131-5).

      This has now been mentioned in the results as well in the revised manuscript.

      “Although we did not observe any growth defect in yeast cells at lower concentrations of the drugs, earlier studies have suggested that yeast cells possibly require higher concentrations of drugs than used for mammalian cells due to the presence of the cell wall, which is particularly thick in S. pombe (Benko et al. 2017; Pérez and Ribas 2004). We thus explored the possibility of cell toxicity to yeast cells at higher concentrations of the drugs.”

      [Lines 234-239]

      The following lines in the discussion have been modified in the revised manuscript to read as – “However, one of the major disadvantages of using fission yeast could be the need to use much higher concentrations of drugs than normally used for mammalian cell cultures to achieve an inhibitory effect. This could probably be due to the poor permeability of certain drugs in fission yeast because of its thick cell wall (Benko et al. 2017; Pérez and Ribas 2004). A similar effect of toxicity might arise at much lower concentrations in other eukaryotic cells, such as human cells.”

      [Lines 498-503]

      Minor comments: 1. There are two units used for drug concentration µM for Sanguinarine and Berberine and µg/ml for PC190723, I think they should be consistent.

      We have now used µM for all drugs.

      Check the units (µM and µg/ml) italic in text and figure legend.

      We have now used µM for all drugs and corrected the italics. We apologise for the erroneous usage of italics in the text for µM.

      Reviewer #3 (Significance (Required)):

      The authors provided a proof-of-concept assay for studying bacterial cytoskeleton proteins in yeast cells. This idea will facilitate people to investigate the bacterial cytoskeleton proteins and also find compounds targeting them without affecting the yeast cells. This study will provide different perspectives to people who study cell biology and secondary metabolites discovery.

      We hope that we have satisfactorily addressed all the concerns raised by the reviewers in the revised manuscript.

      Thanking you,

      With Regards

      Dr. Ramanujam Srinivasan

      Dr. Pananghat Gayathri

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      Referee #3

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary:

      The authors established a proof-of-concept assay to investigate the bacterial cytoskeletal protein FtsZ in fission yeast, and this heterologous yeast system is useful for compounds identification targeting FtsZ. The authors used this system to understand the mechanism of FtsZ's resistance to drug PC190723.

      Major comments:

      1. From the study, the pombe seems to be a good system for investigating the bacterial cytoskeleton proteins and testing the drugs for them. However, to my knowledge it is not convincing that this is the proper system can be used to assessing the eukaryotic toxicity, since no toxicity to pombe does not mean no toxicity to human cells and vice versa.
      2. From figure 4A to 4C, there seems no big difference of cell morphology between control and drug treatment, except for Berberine treatment of SaFtsZ-GFP. Under the low concentration of Sanguinarine (20 µM) and Berberine (53.791 µm), the FtsZ polymerization was disrupted and seems no effect on cell morphology. Why would the authors use much higher Sanguinarine (135.95 µM) and Berberine (134.45 µM) to prove there two drugs are toxic to pombe cells? Sanguinarine and Berberine are FtsZ disruption drugs, do these drugs have effect on microtubule?
      3. There are very few SaFtsZ-GFP dot structure in fig 5B, and this is inconsistent with the SaFtsZ-GFP dot structure in fig 4A. Fig 5D has the same issue compare to Fig 4Ci
      4. The concentration of PC190723 the author used is 20 µg/ml, which is enough for disrupting FtsZ function, however according to the Sanguinarine and Berberine experiments, the author may use higher concentration of PC190723 to assess its toxicity to pombe cells. Same as Sanguinarine and Berberine, does PC190723 has effect on microtubule?
      5. The authors mentioned much higher concentrations of drugs than normally used for mammalian cell cultures have to be used for fission yeast. Is there any criterion for this?

      Minor comments:

      1. There are two units used for drug concentration µM for Sanguinarine and Berberine and µg/ml for PC190723, I think they should be consistent.
      2. Check the units (µM and µg/ml) italic in text and figure legend.

      Significance

      The authors provided a proof-of-concept assay for studying bacterial cytoskeleton proteins in yeast cells. This idea will facilitate people to investigate the bacterial cytoskeleton proteins and also find compounds targeting them without affecting the yeast cells.<br /> This study will provide different perspectives to people who study cell biology and secondary metabolites discovery.

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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Dr. Srinivasin and colleagues previously developed a system where they expressed bacterial FtsZ in yeast and showed that it could assemble into polymers related to the Z rings. Here they develop this system further as a way to assay for drugs that may poison FtsZ, which would be candidates for new antibiotics. They test three drugs against three species of FtsZ. The results suggest that this system should be useful in screening new drugs that may target FtsZ. I would recommend publication after addressing a number of concerns and apparent contradictions.

      Fig. 1 showing chemical formulas of the drugs, and Fig. 2 showing a schematic of the yeast expression system, are probably not needed.

      The authors make a point that sanguinarine and berberine inhibit eukaryote cell morphology. In fact, what they show is that they affect yeast cell morphology. This may or may not extend to other eukaryotes. Also, other eukaryotic cells may be more sensitive to drugs than yeast. They should me more conservative in this claim that the system also screens for drugs effects on eukaryotes.

      Fig. 3 has some new structural data that should be explored more quantitatively. My quick measurement gave 0.5 and 0.8 µm for the outside diameters of Ec and Sa rings. The spirals of Hp seem to be 0.8 µm outside diameter, similar to SA rings. These spirals may be related to those reported by Popp and by Andreu under certain buffer conditions. This should be explored and referenced.

      But Fig. 4 presents a contradiction. Here the Hp control cells show long smooth polymers, not helical. This seems an important difference and needs to be addressed. Are the polymers sometimes straight and sometimes helical? After finishing the paper I see that in some experiments the HP is helical, and in others the polymers are straight and smooth. I think it would be important to determine what favors the two forms. If this remains a mystery, at least address it openly.

      I am concerned that the quantitation of drug inhibition in Fig 4, 5 is flawed. Visually from 4A it looks like ~90-100% of control cells have polymers, and sang reduces polymers by 70% for Sa and Ec and 100% for Hp: this is based on the number of spots and filaments I see in Fig. 4 Aii. But the quantitation in D shows only 17-23% reduction for all three. These numbers were based on determining the fraction of cells that showed polymer (spots or lines) vs diffuse. It seems that cells are counted as containing polymer even if they had a great reduction in spots or lines, but still had a few. E.g., 4Aii Sa has 4 cells, two of them with no spots, one with only 2, and one with ~7, which totals ~1/3 the spots in control cells. Categorizing cells with only a couple of spots as polymerized, seems to be a poor way to quantitate. Would it not be better to count all spots in all cells, or measure the total length of line polymers, as a measure of inhibition.

      Fig. 5 makes a convincing case that PC19 accelerates or enhances the polymerization of Sa and Hp. Fig. S2 shows that the structures of polymers are not changed when PC19 is added at 20 hrs, after polymers have already formed. It would have been nice to see for both 5A and S2A that the round spots had holes in the center, when imaged by SIM. Again the quantitation of cells as polymer vs diffuse seems ill suited, because it misses cells with a reduced number of spots.

      Fig. 6 uses FRAP to show that PC reduces the dynamic exchange of Sa polymers by a factor of 3. It is remarkable to me that rapid exchange is not completely eliminated by PC. Regardless, it would be very important to reference the previous study of Adams..Errington 2011, where they showed the same thing for Foci in Bacillus. PC19 reduced the exchange from 3 to 10 s, but the foci were still very dynamic.

      The analysis of the salt bridge as opposed to a single Arg or His being the cause of resistance to PC19 is an interesting addition to the study. In Fig. 8D some numbers do not agree between the caption and figure (R309/7; S226/7). The whole figure should be carefully checked.

      I am not familiar with the Gram -ve and Gram +ve nomenclature. Why not simply gram- and gram+?

      The Discussion is quite long largely because it repeats items from Results and Introduction. It is also redundant to hype the value of this system in both Introduction and Discussion; The Introduction should be sufficient. The Discussion should be pared down by eliminating repetition and focusing on relating results to previous literature, in particular items that have not been referenced previously in the paper. Also, I think we don't need the final "In summary" paragraph. That is already nicely presented in the Abstract.

      The authors should probably provide references to other studies that have used yeast expression to study assembly of FtsZ. I am thinking in particular of papers from the Osteryoung lab looking at chloroplast FtsZ.

      NO PAGE NUMBERS. Authors should be penalized a week delay for submitting a mss without page numbers.

      Significance

      This work should be of interest to the broad field of research on FtsZ. The authors present it as a new platform for assaying drugs targeting FtsZ, and researchers in this area will certainly be interested. It will also be of broader interest for the novel assay of assembly and exchange dynamics and how they may be modulated by small molecules.

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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary:

      Srinivasan and co-workers developed an alternative screening method for defining the ability of FtsZ inhibitor to affect FtsZ polymerization. This alternative assay was defined considering the expertise of the authors on the topic, and they use Schizosaccharomyces pombe as a model for studying the effect of PC190723, sanguinarine and berberine on FtsZ assembly. The use of a heterologous expression system is useful for the evaluation of FtsZ coming from different strains, both Gram - and Gram +. The same model could gain insights also on the capability of FtsZ inhibitors to affect eukaryotic cell physiology. Finally, authors resulted also in suggesting a possible cause to suspected resistance to PC190723 from Gram - strains as E. coli.

      Major comments:

      • The conclusions are included in the discussion section and are quite convincing, for a general audience.
      • In my opinion, the authors should define which could be the limits of their method, since no data on the possible weaknesses are reported.
      • No additional experiments are required to support the claims.
      • The suggested experiments could be quite easy to be realized for authors working in the microbiological field, and familiar with protein expression and purification, as well as bacteria and yeast growth.
      • From my side, even if I am not so expert in microbiology and plasmid/protein purification, the methods presented could be reproduced with no significant doubt.
      • Statistical analysis was done and seems to be adequate.

      Minor comments:

      • Prior studies should be deepened, especially for the state of art authors referred to. Additional paper, both reviews on the possible methods for evaluating FtsZ inhibition, as well as research papers on FtsZ inhibitors targeting E. coli and other Gram negative strains should be mentioned, since, in my opinion, these could move authors in changing a little bit the overall text of the manuscript.
      • The whole text requires a deep check for grammar and word choice. Some sentences should be re-written since it is not so easy to understand their meaning. Figures are clear, even if I am not so convinced on the need of including Figure 1.

      Significance

      • In my opinion, the outcome coming from this work could move researchers in evaluating an alternative method for assessing FtsZ inhibition. Nevertheless, the actual state of art, a few reviews of the last years confirm this, already underlined a huge number of possible assays, both microbiological, biochemical, biophysical, physiological, or other. As a result, the authors did not result in convincing me about the importance of their methods, when compared to others. They may include some other possible assays and comment of the differences, pros and cons.
      • As I mentioned before, there are a lot of reviews including the possible tests to perform for assessing FtsZ inhibition. A recent one was not cited, but, from my side, it should be mentioned (10.3390/antibiotics10030254). Moreover, I think authors should reconsidered novel research papers, in which researchers evaluated the reason behind the apparent inactivity of benzamide derivatives, similar to PC190723, towards Gram negative strains.
      • Researchers working on FtsZ inhibitors could be interested in this paper, especially microbiologists.
      • I specifically work on the design, synthesis and evaluation of the microbiological assays performed by others on my compounds.
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      Reply to the reviewers

      1. Description of the planned revisions

      Suggested by reviewer 3:

        • The authors showed the importance of the 3'UTR of Ldh in regulating Ldh translation under hypoxia, and they mention in the discussion that further investigation is needed to understand the nature of this regulation. Mutational analysis of the 3'UTR sequence could help to extend the paper and enhance its impact. *

      *A mutational analysis of Ldh mRNA 3’UTR is currently under way and will be included in the revised version of the manuscript. *

      • *

      2.One obvious shortcoming of this paper is that the functions of the Ldh 3' UTR and or eIF4EHP are not connected by experimental tests. Experiments aimed at determining the functional relation of the 3' UTR and eIF4EHP could enhance the paper and deliver a more complete story about the mechanism of selective translation under hypoxia.

      We believe that data presented in figure 4 do functionally connect eIF4EHP and Ldh 3’UTR since we show that a reporter mRNA containing the Ldh mRNA 3’UTR is specifically recruited on polysome in hypoxic control cells but not in eIF4EHP-depleted cells. However, we plan to further strengthen this demonstration by analyzing Ldh mRNA 3’UTR mutants in polysomes of WT or eIF4EHP-deficient cells.

      • *

      *3.The authors refer to human cell studies showing that HIF2a is involved in mRNA translation in hypoxic conditions. They mentioned in the discussion that Drosophila Sima has not been identified to interact with eIF4EHP. To test whether Sima regulates Ldh translation, the authors could test the involvement of Sima in experiments from Fig 6. *

      As suggested, we plan to inhibit Sima expression by CRISPR/Cas9 in S2 cells and if viable, evaluate the recruitment of eiF4EHP on polysomes of hypoxic Sima-KO cells. The interaction of Ldh mRNA with eiF4EHP in absence of Sima could also be tested. However, the later experiment is most probably impossible as the transcriptional induction of Ldh by hypoxia is strongly reduced upon Sima depletion in S2 cells (Dekanty A et al 2010, Plos Genet 6(6) e1000994) and Drosophila larvae (Wang et al. 2016, ELife:e18126).

      2.Description of the revisions that have already been incorporated in the transferred manuscript* *

      Reviewer 1

      • * *5.The authors should integrate the emerging concept of adaptive cap-binding translation factors in the discussion. It is still generally assumed that inhibition of eIF4E results automatically to cap-independent protein synthesis. The discovery that eIF3D, 4E2 and 4E3, amongst others, can initiate stimuli-specific translation should be discussed in the context of the work from this paper. *

      The discussion now includes the emerging concept of diverse non-canonical cap-dependent translation mechanisms.

      • *

      Reviewer 2

      Minor comments:

        • Similarly, in Fig 6C it would be good to show the equivalent CLIP data for 21% oxygen. Presumably, since eIF4HP is not in polysomes in the normoxic condition, there should be no enrichment (or little enrichment) for the Ldh mRNA. *

      Fig. 6C has been revised to indicate more clearly that the data were obtained in cells under hypoxia. The method section has been modified to include a reference protocol. A statistical test has been included. Ldh mRNA is expressed at very low level in normoxic S2 cells and is strongly induced upon hypoxic exposure (>500 fold). Therefore, the comparison of eiF4EHP binding to Ldh mRNA between normoxic and hypoxic conditions is not relevant due to this strong difference in Ldh mRNA abundance.

      • *

      *For Fig 7B - it's a bit confusing to label the y-axis as "flies escaping" to mean flies that climb past a certain limit. I suggest relabeling the axis to something like "flies climbing past threshold". *

      The proposed modification has been introduced in Fig.7B.

      Reviewer 3

      • *

      • In Fig 3A-B, induction of LDH by hypoxia is almost completely blocked by eiF4EHP knockdown in fly heads but not in S2 cells. We wonder whether this indicates tissue specific regulation of LDH translation, such that there might be alternative cap-binding proteins in S2 cells. Please comment.*

      Expression data from flyRNAi and our RNAseq experiments (de Toeuf et al, Scientific Reports, 2018) indicate that only eiF4E1, eiF4E6 and eiF4EHP are expressed in S2 cells in normoxia and hypoxia, all the other members (eIF4E3, 4, 5, 7) being very weakly or not expressed at all. We show that eiF4E6 KO does not impair Ldh mRNA association to polysomes in S2 under hypoxia (Fig.3E,F), thereby suggesting that this member of the family is not involved in Ldh mRNA hypoxic translation. Therefore, the difference in LDH suppression resulting from eiF4EHP KO in S2 versus fly heads cannot be explained by the involvement of alternative eiF4E family members in S2 cells*. *

      • *
      • In Fig 3E, the authors present results of puromycin incorporation with eIF4EHP KD under hypoxia. It is actually not clear what the function of eIF4EHP is under normoxic conditions. The authors shall include a control of puromycin incorporation with eIF4EHP KD under 21% O2. In addition, the authors should include statistical tests for the comparisons.*
      • These data are now presented in fig. 3G. We have increased the number of replicates (now n=12) and, as suggested, we compared the incorporation of puromycin in normoxic and hypoxic condition. We observed a stronger reduction in puromycin incorporation in eIF4EHP KO cells as compared to controls when cells are exposed to hypoxic conditions. Our results therefore suggest that the positive effect of eiF4EHP on protein synthesis is predominant under hypoxic conditions. *

      • *

      • In Fig 4C, the authors did Western Blots to detect eIF4EHP, and find that there is protein signal under the condition with eIF4EHP KD + D. persimilis eIF4EHP overexpression. It is unclear whether the antibody detects both eIF4EHPs in Drosophila melanogaster and D. persimilis, or whether, alternatively, expressing the D. persimilis version induces cells to express endogenous eIF4EHP. Please comment. * The antibody detects both eiF4EHP, with DpeiF4EHP-V5 being slightly heavier. The difference of band intensity between WT+ DpeiF4EHP and KO + DpeiF4EHP most probably results from a difference of DpeiF4EHP construct transfection efficiency in the two cell lines. This difference of expression has no influence on results shown in Fig.4D,E.

      The antibody used in Fig.4C and its cross-reactivity to dpeiF4EHP have been specified in the figure legend.

      • *
      • In Fig 7A, we don't see the point of including results of flies carrying balancers as control. Direct comparisons with mCherry-RNAi should suffice. Also, presenting the percentage of hatched embryos can be misleading. We would suggest the authors present the absolute numbers of embryos examined and indicate the number of larvae that hatched.*

      We believe that our experimental protocol is valid and supports our conclusions. The presence of the balancer chromosome provides an internal control for each cross. *The balancer being transmitted in 50% of the embryos we can directly compare for each individual cross, after eclosion, the number of individuals bearing or not the dominant balancer marker. We have performed an additional experiment to increase the sample size for hypoxic conditions and we now provide a statistical analysis. *

      • In addition (Fig 7) "birth" is not an appropriate term for insects. Please state whether the numbers indicated larvae "hatched" from eggs, or adult flies "eclosed" from pupae. Please use these terms in the text, figure and figure legends. *

      These terms have been replaced in the revised manuscript.

      • In Fig 6C, a statistical test is missing. *

      A statistical test has been included*. *

      • *
      • The authors sometimes refer to knockdown as KO, please be accurate.*

      This point has been revised. We define KO upon gene disruption by CRISPR/cas9 as performed in S2 cells and KD upon Knock down by RNAi as performed in flies.

      Reviewer 4

        • In human cells eIF4E2 (the eIF4EHP orthologue) can activate translation in hypoxia by forming a complex with HIF2alpha, RBM4, and eIF4G3. The paper states in the discussion that inhibition of the Drosophila eIF4G3 counterparts eIF4G2 and NAT1 does not affect translation under hypoxia. However, the data behind this important conclusion are not shown, nor are details given as to how eIF4G2 and NAT1 were 'inhibited', whether or not both were inhibited at the same time, and whether the fly RBM4 orthologue Lark was investigated. While the mechanism of how eIF4EHP activates translation must be different in Drosophila from that in human cells because of the absence of HIF2alpha, not much more can be concluded than that in the absence of explicit experimental data. *

      We tested the role of eIF4G2 and NAT1 by CRISPR/cas9 inactivation independently in S2 cells under hypoxia. We did not observe any modification in LDH synthesis and Ldh mRNA distribution in polysomes. These experiments are mentioned in the discussion. We tested Lark KO in S2 and Lark KD in flies. We observed in both settings that Lark inactivation is lethal, thereby precluding the study of Lark in hypoxic translation by gene inactivation*. *

      • Fig 3B shows a large increase in LDH levels under hypoxic conditions in eIF4EHP KO cells, which is inconsistent with the narrative description of this result and the paper's conclusions. Ratios of LDH in normoxic and hypoxic conditions for eIF4EHP KO and control cells should be quantitated from multiple experiments, compared, and tested for statistical significance. * *The results now shown in Fig.3C,D are crucial and are consistent with the main conclusion of the paper that eiF4EHP activates Ldh mRNA translation in a 3’UTR-dependent manner. *

      *Ratios of LDH/Actin levels have now been measured in 7 independent experiments and tested for statistical significance. We observed a significant decrease of hypoxia induced LDH production in eIFEHP KO cell line as compared to Cas9 control cell line. *

      • Statistical significance should also be shown for the data in Fig 3E. I note that the empty vector control reduces puromycin incorporation by quite a lot. *

      *The experiment (now presented in fig. 3G) has been reproduced (from n=3 to n=6). A statistical analysis has been performed. The cell line transfected with the empty vector is the adequate control and reduction of puromycin incorporation in these cells in comparison to untransfected cells might results from cas9 expression. The figure was modified to present comparisons between KO and control cell lines both in hypoxic and normoxic conditions. *

      • The number of survivors is very low for both control and eIF4EHP KD flies in Fig 7A. Are these comparisons statistically significant? *

      This experiment was repeated to increase the number of flies in the hypoxic group. Statistical significance is now indicated and the legend was modified accordingly.

      • *

        • It should be explained why eIF4E6 KO was included in Fig 3. *

      This explanation is now included in the text. 2.

      • I assume that 6% oxygen was used for the viability experiment in Fig 7A because the lower concentration of 1% used in all other experiments would be lethal to both control and KD flies. This reasoning should be made explicit. *

      This is in fact the reason for using 6% oxygen. It is indicated in the revised manuscript.

      3. There is a great deal of sloppiness about nomenclature. The FlyBase term for the molecule of interest is eIF4EHP. Within this manuscript I found it referred to as eIF4EHP, eiF4EHP, eIF4HP, eiF4HP, and ei4EHP. This requires correction. * The nomenclature has been revised according to FlyBase terms.*

      • The references are also sloppy and presented in several different formats*.

      The reference list has been revised and is now homogenously formatted.

      2. Description of analyses that authors prefer not to carry out

      Experiments suggested by Reviewer 1:

      *1.The work focuses mainly on LDH. It would be a missed opportunity to show the effect of eIF4EHP in hypoxic Drosophila on puromycin incorporation. *

      This experiment has been performed. However, puromycin incorporation is only detectable in normoxic larvae. Puromycin labeling is undetectable in hypoxic larvae or adult flies. This is most likely due to 2 distinct parameters that make the experiment irrelevant. First, translational activity is inhibited in hypoxia (the measured parameter) and second, the feeding activity of larvae and adults is also strongly reduced or totally stopped in hypoxia, therefore drastically reducing the uptake of puromycin compared to normoxic individuals and making the comparison of the 2 conditions (normoxia vs hypoxia) impossible.

      *We decided not to further pursue this approach. *

      *2.In mammalian cells, blocking de novo transcription does not affect protein accumulation of eIF4E2 translated mRNA, even if these mRNA do not increase during hypoxia. It would be important to silence sima and test if this could block increased translation of ldh or other target in hypoxic conditions. This would suggest that sima is both a transcription and translation factor that evolved in HIF1a and HIF2a, the latter being a hypoxic translation regulator. This can be compared to cells treated with a general transcription inhibitor. These experiments would broaden the impact of the work. *

      *Here, reviewer 1 is most certainly referring to figure 1 of Uniacke et al. 2012 (Nature 486:126) where the authors observed that human EGFR protein accumulates in hypoxic human U87MG cells treated or not with actinomycin D in a HIF2-dependent manner. Supplementary Fig.3 from the same paper clearly shows that EGFR mRNA is constitutively present in U87MG independently of hypoxic exposure or actinomycin D treatment. The same type of experiment cannot be transposed in for LDH synthesis in Drosophila cells. Indeed, Ldh mRNA is strongly induced at the transcriptional level upon hypoxia. Therefore, inhibiting Sima expression or treating cells will Actinomycin D will block Ldh mRNA synthesis making it impossible to analyze further its translational status. *

      *3.Fig 5C. It is unclear what are the conclusions of the authors on the lack of co-localization between poly(A)RNA and eIF4EHP. In principle, eIF4EHP should co-localize with poly(A) mRNA. Perhaps a proximity ligation assay should be done to clarify this question. The data shown in F5C is not convincing one way or the other and needs clear cut experiments. Idem for 5A and B. PLA would provide convincing results. *

      *We observed a reduced puromycin incorporation in eIF4EHP KO cells under hypoxic conditions (Fig. 3E), revealing a decrease in protein synthesis activity in hypoxic cells depleted of eiF4EHP. Therefore, our observations support a model in which eiF4HP is promoting translation of specific mRNA targets under hypoxic conditions rather than acting as a global translational inhibitor. In this context, it is expected, as confirmed in figure 5C, that eiF4EHP will not colocalize with poly(A)+ mRNA in hypoxic S2 cells as most of these mRNA are not translated under these conditions (Fig1 A,B). The paragraph describing fig. 5C has been modified to clearly specify this point. *

      • *
      • Fig 6C is important but the data is hard to understand. First, the Y-axis is "enrichment relative to input". Is this hypoxia vs normoxia? Is the Y-axis log (probably)? The best would be to show that normoxia and hypoxia and see if eIF4EHP binds to ldh mRNA in both conditions perhaps acting as a translational repressor in normoxia and translational activator in hypoxia. Also, the authors could pool monosome and polysome fractions and see in which fractions eIF4EHP binds to Ldh mRNA. Finally, do the authors think that rpl32 remains associated with ldh mRNA in normoxia and hypoxia? *

      *Fig.6C (linear Y-axis) shows that Ldh mRNA is specifically bound by eiF4EHP in S2 cells under hypoxia as it is immunoprecipitated with eiF4EHP in WT cells and not in eIF4EHP KO S2. The Ldh mRNA/eiF4EHP interaction is specific as rpl32 mRNA is not immunoprecipitated in the same conditions. *

      *Ldh mRNA is barely expressed in normoxia, rendering the analysis of Ldh mRNA binding to eiF4EHP technically difficult and introducing a strong bias to the relative comparison of this association in hypoxia versus normoxia. *

      Our data showing that Ldh mRNA is massively associated to polysomes under hypoxia (fig.1D,E) and that this association is strongly impaired in eiF4EHP KO cells (Fig. 3C,D) combined to Ldh mRNA direct association to eiF4EHP in hypoxia (Fig.6C) strongly support the role of eiF4EHP in Ldh mRNA translation. Association of Ldh mRNA to eiF4EHP in polysomes versus monosomes would not significantly contribute to our conclusions.

      • *

      Experiments suggested by Reviewer 2:

      Minor comments:

        • Fig 2A - it would be good to show the equivalent luciferase assays at 21% oxygen, to test whether the elevated activity of the Ldh 3'UTR is something specific to the hypoxic condition, or whether this is always the case, also under non-stressed conditions.*

      *The reporter gene assays of fig2A have been performed with luciferase reporters placed downstream of the Ldh gene promoter whose activity is very low under normoxia. This strategy was used to avoid luciferase expression and accumulation prior to exposure to hypoxia and potential masking of the Ldh 3’UTR effect on luciferase activity. The corresponding paragraphs have been modified to explicitly describe that reporter constructs used in this experiment are hypoxia-inducible. *

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      Referee #4

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary:

      The manuscript by Liang et al. shows that, while overall translation is reduced under hypoxic conditions, translation of Ldh mRNA substantially increases. This increase is demonstrated to depend upon the Ldh 3' UTR and the variant translation factor eIF4EHP. The manuscript further shows that eIF4EHP associates with polysomal fractions and with Ldh mRNA under hypoxic conditions and that it is enriched in cytoplasmic foci apparently distinct from stress granules and P bodies in hypoxia. Finally, the paper provides evidence that loss of eIF4EHP worsens the survival rate of flies in reduced oxygen conditions.

      Major comments:

      The experimental data largely support the conclusions that are drawn but I have some important reservations.

      1. In human cells eIF4E2 (the eIF4EHP orthologue) can activate translation in hypoxia by forming a complex with HIF2alpha, RBM4, and eIF4G3. The paper states in the discussion that inhibition of the Drosophila eIF4G3 counterparts eIF4G2 and NAT1 does not affect translation under hypoxia. However, the data behind this important conclusion are not shown, nor are details given as to how eIF4G2 and NAT1 were 'inhibited', whether or not both were inhibited at the same time, and whether the fly RBM4 orthologue Lark was investigated. While the mechanism of how eIF4EHP activates translation must be different in Drosophila from that in human cells because of the absence of HIF2alpha, not much more can be concluded than that in the absence of explicit experimental data.

      2. Fig 3B shows a large increase in LDH levels under hypoxic conditions in eIF4EHP KO cells, which is inconsistent with the narrative description of this result and the paper's conclusions. Ratios of LDH in normoxic and hypoxic conditions for eIF4EHP KO and control cells should be quantitated from multiple experiments, compared, and tested for statistical significance.

      3. Statistical significance should also be shown for the data in Fig 3E. I note that the empty vector control reduces puromycin incorporation by quite a lot.

      4. The number of survivors is very low for both control and eIF4EHP KD flies in Fig 7A. Are these comparisons statistically significant?

      Minor comments:

      1. It should be explained why eIF4E6 KO was included in Fig 3.

      2. I assume that 6% oxygen was used for the viability experiment in Fig 7A because the lower concentration of 1% used in all other experiments would be lethal to both control and KD flies. This reasoning should be made explicit.

      3. There is a great deal of sloppiness about nomenclature. The FlyBase term for the molecule of interest is eIF4EHP. Within this manuscript I found it referred to as eIF4EHP, eiF4EHP, eIF4HP, eiF4HP, and ei4EHP. This requires correction.

      4. The references are also sloppy and presented in several different formats.

      Significance

      As mentioned above, it is established in human cells that the orthologue of eIF4EHP can activate translation under hypoxic conditions. So the basic result in this manuscript simply confirms that the same phenomenon occurs in flies. As mentioned in the previous section, in human cells eIF4EHP activates translation in a 3' UTR dependent manner as part of a complex containing HIF2alpha, RBM4, and eIF4G3. While a different mechanism is likely to exist in Drosophila, it is not elucidated by the experimental data presented in this paper. Therefore I find the work to be of limited significance.

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      Referee #3

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Exposure to hypoxia induces dramatic metabolic changes in metazoan cells, and a major reprogramming of gene expression occurs to adapt to decreased energy production, such as global repression of protein synthesis, with exception of a select subset of genes whose functions are required during hypoxia. Inspired by work from a mammalian study, the authors of this manuscript investigated how a certain mRNA, in this case Ldh, is selectively translated under hypoxia in Drosophila melanogaster. The authors discovered that the 3'UTR of Ldh mediates its translational activation in hypoxia. Furthermore, they identify eIF4EHP as a critical component for this hypoxia induced translation, and show that its function is important for fly survival and development under hypoxic conditions. The authors present extensive, compelling results to support their conclusions. However, we still find this work can be improved in several aspects:

      1. The authors showed the importance of the 3'UTR of Ldh in regulating Ldh translation under hypoxia, and they mention in the discussion that further investigation is needed to understand the nature of this regulation. Mutational analysis of the 3'UTR sequence could help to extend the paper and enhance its impact.

      2. One obvious shortcoming of this paper is that the functions of the Ldh 3' UTR and o eIF4EHP are not connected by experimental tests. Experiments aimed at determining the functional relation of the 3' UTR and eIF4EHP could enhance the paper and deliver a more complete story about the mechanism of selective translation under hypoxia.

      3. The authors refer to human cell studies showing that HIF2a is involved in mRNA translation in hypoxic conditions. They mentioned in the discussion that Drosophila Sima has not been identified to interact with eIF4EHP. To test whether Sima regulates to Ldh translation, the authors could test the involvement of Sima in experiments from Fig 6.

      4. In Fig 3A-B, induction of LDH by hypoxia is almost completely blocked by eiF4EHP knockdown in fly heads but not in S2 cells. We wonder whether this indicates tissue specific regulation of LDH translation, such that there might be alternative cap-binding proteins in S2 cells. Please comment.

      5. In Fig 3E, the authors present results of puromycin incorporation with eIF4EHP KD under hypoxia. It is actually not clear what the function of eIF4EHP is under normoxic conditions. The authors shall include a control of puromycin incorporation with eIF4EHP KD under 21% O2. In addition, the authors should include statistical tests for the comparisons.

      6. In Fig 4C, the authors did Western Blots to detect eIF4EHP, and find that there is protein signal under the condition with eIF4EHP KD + D. persimilis eIF4EHP overexpression. It is unclear whether the antibody detects both eIF4EHPs in Drosophila melanogaster and D. persimilis, or whether, alternatively, expressing the D. persimilis version induces cells to express endogenous eIF4EHP. Please comment.

      7. In Fig 7A, we don't see the point of including results of flies carrying balancers as control. Direct comparisons with mCherry-RNAi should suffice. Also, presenting the percentage of hatched embryos can be misleading. We would suggest the authors present the absolute numbers of embryos examined and indicate the number of larvae that hatched.

      8. In addition (Fig 7) "birth" is not an appropriate term for insects. Please state whether the numbers indicated larvae "hatched" from eggs, or adult flies "eclosed" from pupae. Please use these terms in the text, figure and figure legends.

      9. In Fig 6c, a statistical test is missing.

      10. The authors sometimes refer to knockdown as KO, please be accurate.

      Significance

      Exposure to hypoxia induces dramatic metabolic changes in metazoan cells, and a major reprogramming of gene expression occurs to adapt to decreased energy production, such as global repression of protein synthesis, with exception of a select subset of genes whose functions are required during hypoxia. Inspired by work from a mammalian study, the authors of this manuscript investigated how a certain mRNA, in this case Ldh, is selectively translated under hypoxia in Drosophila melanogaster. The authors discovered that the 3'UTR of Ldh mediates its translational activation in hypoxia. Furthermore, they identify eIF4EHP as a critical component for this hypoxia induced translation, and show that its function is important for fly survival and development under hypoxic conditions. These results are unique and significant, and should be of interest to researchers who work on hypoxia, stress responses in general, and mRNA translation. As noted above (#1, #2) the paper could go further mechanistically, to determine the relative roles of the LDH 3' UTR and eIF4EHP. But it already has an extensive array of impressive translation data.

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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary:

      When cells are stressed, such as during hypoxia, most of the canonical mRNA translation is shut off. Nonetheless, stress-response genes need to be translated. One such example is the lactate dehydrogenase (Ldh) mRNA, which encodes for an enzyme needed by cells to resist hypoxia. Therefore, these mRNA employ non-canonical mechanisms of translation to escape the general repression. Here, Liang et al. study the molecular mechanism how the Ldh mRNA is translated in Drosophila during hypoxia. They discover that the Ldh 3'UTR contains sequences that enable efficient translation. They identify the non-canonical initiation factor eIF4HP as a factor required for Ldh translation, and show that it binds the Ldh mRNA. Interestingly, they show that the ability of the Ldh 3'UTR to promote translation during hypoxia depends on eIF4HP. They go on to show that unlike other canonical translation initiation factors, during hypoxia eIF4HP remains in polysomes and does not form translationally-repressed aggregates such as stress granules or P-bodies. Finally, Liang et al show that eIF4HP is required in flies to efficiently resist hypoxia.

      Major comments:

      This is a very nice and solid study. Overall, I found the data and the conclusions very convincing. Also nice is how they cover the topic broadly, starting at the molecular level with the 3'UTR of the Ldh mRNA and ending with physiological assays such as resistance of flies to hypoxia. In particular I found the experiments presented in Fig 2C and 4A to be very nice, showing that the 3'UTR is responsible for the resistance to translation inhibition, and that this is mediated by eiF4EHP. I have only a few minor comments (below) to strengthen further the study, but I think it could be published also without these additional experiments.

      Minor comments:

      I have only two minor suggestions for experiments that would further strengthen the conclusions presented in the paper:

      • Fig 2A - it would be good to show the equivalent luciferase assays at 21% oxygen, to test whether the elevated activity of the Ldh 3'UTR is something specific to the hypoxic condition, or whether this is always the case, also under non-stressed conditions.

      • Similarly, in Fig 6C it would be good to show the equivalent CLIP data for 21% oxygen. Presumably, sinc eIF4HP is not in polysomes in the normoxic condition, there should be no enrichment (or little enrichment) for the Ldh mRNA.

      • For Fig 7B - it's a bit confusing to label the y-axis as "flies escaping" to mean flies that climb past a certain limit. I suggest relabeling the axis to something like "flies climbing past threshold".

      Significance

      • The mechanisms of translation that one can read when opening a standard molecular biology textbook are the canonical mechanisms that take place in cells when they are not stressed. Cells, however, often experience stress. For instance, animals in the wild are exposed to heat or cold stress, cancer cells in a tumor are exposed to hypoxia, low amino acids, low sugar, etc. In such conditions, the canonical mRNA translation systems are shut down, and non-canononical mechanisms are remain (or are turned on). So it is a very interesting topic to understand how these non-canonical mRNA translation mechanisms function. This study contributes significantly to this topic by identifying the molecular mechanism how Ldh is translated during hypoxia. Ldh is an important gene because it is the last step of anaerobic glycolysis in animals, needed for cells to produce ATP when oxidative phosphorylation in mitochondria is incapable of functioning. Hence, understanding how the Ldh mRNA is translated is important for cell metabolism, cell viability, and organismal physiology. Furthermore, discovering that a non-canonical form of eIF4E, called eIF4EHP in Drosophila, or eIF4E2 in humans, is responsible for this translation is an important finding that opens up new avenues for future research, asking more broadly which parts of the translatome depend on this factor for their translation. The fact that eIF4EHP knockdown flies fare less well than control flies in response to hypoxia shows that eIF4EHP is playing an important role.

      • I think these findings will be interesting for a broad audience studying mRNA translation, hypoxia, cell stress responses, cell and organismal metabolism, and organismal physiology.

      • My expertise is in Drosophila development, mRNA translation and tissue growth.

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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      The manuscript by Gueydan and collaborators examines the role of eiF4EHP in Drosophila. The major conclusion of the paper is that eIF4EHP believed to be a translation repressor in fact drives protein synthesis during hypoxia. The bulk of the study is focused on the lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) mRNA, a mRNA that undergoes efficient translation during hypoxia thereby going against the grain of the general protein synthesis inhibition by low oxygen tension. While the paper is somewhat confirmatory of work published by other groups that eIF4E2 (homolog of eIF4EHP) drives hypoxic translation, the work shown here is done in whole organism that adds what I consider to be another significant layer of evidence to the story. The paper also provides additional evidence that cells are equipped with multiple stimuli-specific cap-binding translation initiation factors that produce adaptive translatomes. The work is convincing, the paper well-written and the demonstration of eIF4EHP role in whole organism is important. Nonetheless, I do have a few comments that should be addressed to strengthen the conclusions of the authors.

      1. The work focuses mainly of LDH. It would be a missed opportunity to show the effect of eIF4EHP in hypoxic Drosophila on puromycin incorporation. The work on S2 cells shown in Fig. 3E, while convincing, only reproduces what is already known. Puromycin incorporation in larvae.

      2. In mammalian cells, blocking de novo transcription does not affect protein accumulation of eIF4E2 translated mRNA, even if these mRNA do not increase during hypoxia. It would be important to silence sima and test if this could block increased translation of ldh or other target in hypoxic conditions. This would suggest that sima is both a transcription and translation factor that evolved in HIF1a and HIF2a, the latter being a hypoxic translation regulator. This can be compared to cells treated with a general transcription inhibitor. These experiments would broaden the impact of the work

      3. Fig 5C. It is unclear what are the conclusions of the authors are on the lack of co-localization between poly(A)RNA and eIF4EHP. In principle, eIF4EHP should co-localize with poly(A)mRNA. Perhaps a proximity ligation assay should be done to clarify this question. The data shown in F5C is not convincing one way or the other and needs clear cut experiments. Idem for 5A and B. PLA would provide convincing results.

      4. Fig 6C is important but the data is hard to understand. First, the Y-axis is "enrichment relative to input". Is this hypoxia vs normoxia? Is the Y-axis log (probably)? The best would be to show that normoxia and hypoxia and see if eIF4EHP binds to ldh mRNA in both conditions perhaps acting as a translational repressor in normoxia and translational activator in hypoxia. Also, the authors could pool monosome and polysome factions and see in which fractions eIF4EHP binds to ldh mRNA. Finally, do the authors think that rpl32 remains associated with ldh mRNA in normoxia and hypoxia?

      5. The authors should integrate the emerging concept of adaptive cap-binding translation factors in the discussion. It is still generally assumed that inhibition of eIF4E results automatically to cap-independent protein synthesis. The discovery that eIF3D, 4E2 and 4E3, amongst others, can initiate stimuli-specific translation should be discussed in the context of the work from this paper.

      Significance

      While the paper is somewhat confirmatory of work published by other groups that eIF4E2 (homolog of eIF4EHP) drives hypoxic translation, the work shown here is done in whole organism that adds what I consider to be another significant layer of evidence to the story

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      Reply to the reviewers

      Manuscript number: RC-2022-01680

      Corresponding author(s): Woo Jae, Kim

      1. General Statements The goal of this study is to provide the groundwork for future studies of genetically controlled neuronal regulation of ‘interval timing’ through the provision of a behavioral paradigm. Interval timing, or the sense of time in the seconds to hours range, is important in foraging, decision making, and learning in humans via activation of cortico-striatal circuits. Interval timing requires completely distinct brain processes from millisecond or circadian timing. In summary, interval timing allows us to subjectively sense the passage of physical time, allowing us to integrate action sequences, thoughts, and behavior, detect developing trends, and predict future consequences.

      Many researchers have tried to figure out how animals, including humans, can estimate time intervals with such precision. However, most investigations have been conducted in the realm of psychology rather than biology thus far. Because the study of interval timing was limited in its ability to intervene in the human brain, many psychologists concentrated on developing convincing theoretical models to explain the known occurrence of interval timing.

      To overcome the limits of studying interval timing in terms of genetic control, we have reported that the time investment strategy for mating in Drosophila males can be a suitable behavioral platform to genetically dissect the principle of brain circuit mechanism for interval timing. For example, we previously reported that males prolong their mating when they have previously been exposed to rivals (Kim, Jan & Jan, "Contribution of visual and circadian neural circuits to memory for prolonged mating induced by rivals" Nature Neuroscience, 2012), and this behavior is regulated by visual stimuli, clock genes, and neuropeptide signaling in a subset of neurons (Kim, Jan & Jan, “A PDF/NPF Neuropeptide Signaling Circuitry of Male Drosophila melanogaster Controls Rival-Induced Prolonged Mating” Neuron, 2013).

      Throughout their lives, all animals must make decisions in order to optimize their utility function. Male reproductive success is determined by how many sperms successfully fertilize an egg with a restricted number of investment resources. To optimize male reproductive fitness, a time investment strategy has been devised. As a consequence, we believe that the flexible responses of mating duration to different environmental contexts in Drosophila males might be an excellent model to investigate neural circuits for interval timing.

      One of the most well-known features of human interval timing is the association of different sensory inputs with perception of time intervals, which influences our estimate of time intervals. Therefore, the first step toward comprehending the neural regulation of interval timing is to dissect the role that numerous sensory inputs play in determining the time duration. In this article, we discuss a different time-investment strategy adopted by males, called "Shorter-Mating-Duration" (SMD). According to our findings, male Drosophila with more sexual experience had shorter mating duration. During our investigation into the sensory inputs for SMD behavior, we found a small number of cells that express sugar receptors and pheromone receptors (ppk25 and ppk29) and thus transmit the multisensory information from females in order to generate memories of sexual experiences, which will determine the final decision of mating duration.

      Our discovery of sensory integration mechanisms associated with complex behavioral trait in male Drosophila at the brain circuit and genetic network levels will be a huge step forward in our knowledge of interval timing behavior.

      Description of the planned revisions

      REVIEWER #1

        • Overall I think this would be difficult for a general audience as the rationale and explanation of experiments needs to be clearer. * Answer: During the revision process, we will make our text more legible for wide audiences.

      REVIEWER #2

        • 'The knockdown of LUSH, an odorant-binding protein' Lush is expressed in trichoid sensilla in olfactory organs , from the beginning, they exclude the role of olfaction and later one they said 'suggesting that the expression of the pheromone sensing proteins LUSH and Snmp1 in Gr5a-positive gustatory neurons is critical for generating SMD behavior.' ? Therefore, I recommend If available, please provide a reference for the statement in the Methods section that the Orco1 line was "validated via electrophysiology", or include the electrophysiology data itself in this manuscript as supplementary figure. Ideally, positive behavioral controls for this line would also be included in the manuscript. * Answer: We value the reviewer's concern. LUSH has been discovered as an odorant-binding protein; nevertheless, current research suggests that LUSH may be involved in the sensing of additional pheromones to cVA, implying the presence of a lush-independent cVA detection mechanism [1]. Billeter et al. demonstrated in their paper that LUSH detects a female stimulatory chemical and modifies male mating latency (Fig. 2 of Billeter at al.). As Billeter et al. stated, our present understanding of pheromonal recognition in Drosophila is insufficient, and we concur. As a result, we attempted to validate the expression of Snmp1 in the male leg by experiments (Fig. 7I-J) performing sncRNA seq analysis on the Fly SCope dataset, as shown in Fig. 12. As demonstrated in Fig.12, Snmp1 and LUSH is higly expressed fly leg and wing system. Future study will look at the roles of Snmp1 and LUSH in female pheromone sensing, as well as PPK receptors.

      Following the reviewer's advice, we will repeat the electrophysiologically validated Orco2 mutant phenotype with proper control and attach it when we submit the complete revision to the journal.

      • What is this (GustDx6)? I suggest using Poxn mutant line. *

      Answer: We value the reviewer's recommendation. We believe we have previously demonstrated that the Gr5a-mediated gustatory pathway is essential for the generation of sensory input for SMD behavior, but we will test the Poxn mutant and Poxn-RNAi to replace the GustDx6 mutant result.

      Description of the revisions that have already been incorporated in the transferred manuscript

      REVIEWER #1

      1. My copy of this ms does not have page numbers or line numbers, this makes it extremely difficult to identify where I am making queries/ suggestions. I don't know whether this is a decision of the journal or authors, but please change this in the future.* Answer: We put page numbers and line numbers.

      2. A general point, there is simply too much in this ms. It covers too much ground and so doesn't give proper descriptions, discuss the consequences of the data fully or integrate properly with existing literature. Quantity does not equal impact. *

      Answer: We appreciate the reviewer's insight. We have previously separated this document from our original preprint [2] in response to a prior reviewer's advice; we believe we have included too much data, which may confuse readers. As a result, we will delete all of the mechanosensory/thermosensory receptor screening data from our present paper and write a second manuscript on sensory integration for the production of SMD behavior. We also removed the most of sncRNA seq data analysis except Fig.12 which confirms our finding in a single diagram.

      • Results paragraph 1 says that white mutant background had no effect "unlike that of LMD behavior as reported previously", ignoring that there has been a contrary report that extension of mating duration after exposure to a rival does not involve visual cues and so is not affected by the white mutation (Bretman et al 2011 Curr Biol). *

      Answer: We recognize that there is a conflicting report concerning white mutation on LMD behavior, however because we are now reporting SMD rather than LMD behavior, we deleted the statement comparing white mutant results to earlier reports, as shown below;

      “thus suggesting that the effect of the white mutant genetic background was not evident.” (line 97)

      • A general point in the methodology, it's not very helpful just to say "as in a previous study" without giving at least a brief idea of what that was (e.g. the explanation of egg counting procedures).

      A "sperm depletion" assay is described in the results that I cannot find any methodology for. *

      Answer: We thank the reviewer for allowing us to clarify our lacking methodologies for a better comprehension of our manuscript.

      We included the egg counting procedure to the EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURES section to further illustrate our approach of egg laying assay as below;

      “In short, wild type females mated with naïve or experienced males were transferred to a fresh new vial and allowed to lay eggs for 24 hr at 25°C. After 24 hr of egg laying, number of eggs were counted under the stereomicroscope. After we count the number of eggs, we kept vials in 25°C incubator and counted the total number of progenies ecolsed from them.” (line 956-960)

      We included “Sperm Depletion from Males” section in EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURES as below;

      “To deplete sperm from males, 40 virgin Defexel6234 females which lacks SPR and shows multiple mating with males (Yang 2009) were placed in a vial containing four CS males for indicated time (2 h, 4 h, 8 h, and 24 h).” (line 880)

      • Was the "excessive mating" with SPR females actually observed, or inferred from previous work? Needs to be clear. In what way do virgins expressing fruitless behave like mated females? It is so unclear how all the evidence in this paragraph leads to the conclusion that both cues from females and successful copulation. Especially as in the next paragraph experience with feminized females (with which the focal males cannot copulate) elicits the response.

      It might be helpful to combine the results into a table, so it is easy to see under which conditions males reduce mating duration. *

      Answer: We modified the sentence describing SPR mutant female experiment and added references as below;

      “Sexual experiences with sex peptide receptor (SPR) mutant females which exhibit a delayed post-mating response and multiple mating with males [3] had no additional effect on SMD (Fig. 2I).” (line 135)

      We clarify in which extent, fru>UAS-mSP virgin females behave like mated females as below;

      “Virgin females behave like mated females by expressing a membrane-bound version of male sex-peptide in fruitless-positive neurons, hence rejecting the male's copulation attempt.” (line 136)

      In the instance of feminized males, we assume that these feminine males can give adequate signals for inducing SMD and eliminated the term "successful copulation" since we are unsure if males can copulate these feminized males or not, despite the fact that males can mount and mate with them (Fig. 2O-P).

      Tables S1 and S2 describe the conditions, genotypes, and descriptions of an experiments illustrated in Fig. 2. We believe that these tables may assist general audiences in comprehending our experimental design.

      • Why are no statistics reported in the results? Identifying sig diffs on figures is not sufficient. I'm very sceptical that "mating duration of males showed normal distribution" for all comparisons, but then it's also difficult to identify which were analysed in this way (if statistics were properly reported this would not be an issue). *

      Answer: We described our statistical analysis with mating duration previously [4–7] and followed the statistical analysis of copulation duration assay reported by Crickmore et al., published in CELL (2013) and NEURON (2020) [8,9]. To further validate our statistical analysis, we added estimation statistics which focuses on the effect size of one's experiment/intervention, as opposed to significance testing [10]. We already described our statistical analysis in EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURES section in details. We also described our statistical analysis for mating duration will be same in all other figures in the Fig.1 legend.

      We appreciate the reviewer's recommendation that the normal distribution of our mating duration data be validated. As a consequence, we performed the normailty test with Graphpad prism and added the histogram and QQ plot results to Fig. S1M and N. Table S3 also contains the results of the normality and lognormality tests.

      • Gr5a/ Gr66a mediate acceptance/ avoidance of what? Why would you hypothesise these in particular to be involved? *

      Answer: We accidentally left out the citation for that phrase and updated it with Wang et al.'s CELL (2004) paper. Wang et al. wrote in their article about taste representations in the Drosophila brain, “Our behavioral studies reveal that Gr5a cells recognize sugars and mediate acceptance/attractive behaviors whereas Gr66a cells recognize bitter compounds and mediate avoidance…. This suggests that Gr5a cells may be “acceptance” cells rather than “sweet” cells…. Our expression and behavioral studies reveal that Gr5a marks cells that recognize sugars and mediate taste acceptance, whereas Gr66a marks cells that recognize bitter compounds and mediate avoidance.” [11]

      As a result, we hypothesize that Gr5a and Gr66a-positive cells influence acceptance or avoidance of "taste." We also changed certain sentences to make them clearer, as seen below;

      “Of the various gustatory receptors, Gr5a marks cells that recognize sugars and mediate taste acceptance, whereas Gr66a marks cells that recognizes bitter compounds and mediates avoidance.” (line 173)

      • As Orco was not found to affect the behaviour, why test Or67d? *

      Answer: We appreciate the reviewer bringing this to our attention. We omitted the Or67d result from the present manuscript to simplify it and make it easier for readers to grasp.

      • "Mate guarding" suddenly appears in the modelling section. Can a difference of a couple of minutes in a mating duration of 15-20min really be considered mate guarding? A similar variation in response to rival males is not considered mate guarding, but is linked to adjustments in ejaculate expenditure (admittedly not in a very straight forward way). Surely in a system like this the benefits arise more from how many females the male can mate with in a given time? How does this model relate to any of the previous models of mate guarding?

      In this section the work of Linklater et al 2007 is important, they showed progeny declined over successive matings, and related this to exhaustion of Acps rather than sperm. I would urge the authors to consider that what they observe does not necessarily have an adaptive explanation. *

      Answer: We have defined “mate guarding” in the text now. The costs and benefits of mate guarding have been extensively studied in insects and demonstrated to shape the optimal mating duration of males. In our experiment, we cannot specify whether the shortened mating duration was caused by the adjustments in ejaculate expenditure or a shorted stay after the ejaculation. Instead, our model has a general assumption that the costs of mate guarding increase linearly at the same rate in both pre- and post-ejaculation periods, which is highlighted in the model text.

      There exist many models for the optimal mating duration (earlier models include Grafen and Ridley, 1983. A model of mate guarding. J. Theor. Biol. 102: 549 – 567 [12]). While our model was not built upon a novel theoretical approach (it was built based on the classical Charnov’s marginal value theorem equation), our model was developed specifically for generating testable predictions for the observed SMD behaviors.

      We have rephrased the text as follow;

      “This model assumes that (i) the shortened (or prolonged) mating duration is controlled by males and shaped by a trade-off between the benefit of mate guarding (remaining with the female both before and after the sperm ejaculation) and opportunistic costs (e.g. searching for another mate).” (line 970)”

      • I can't find a data accessibility statement. *

      Answer: We added it in the manuscript.

      • That said, a current grand challenge in understanding behaviour is discovering the mechanisms that enable individuals to respond plastically to changing environments. This speaks directly to that challenge. However, this behavioural observation is not novel, as claimed. Generally the idea of refractoriness is widely known, and specifically the reduction in mating duration over successive matings in D. melanogaster was shown by Linklater et al 2007 Evolution. Moreover, the time between exposure to females has been shown to be important. Linklater et al 2007 gave males mating attempts in quick succession and observed the decrease in mating duration, whereas given recovery time of 3 days, males either mate equally as long, or even longer across their life course (Bretman et al 2011 Proc B, Bretman et al 2013 Evolution). These papers should be discussed, and more broadly the work understood in the light of previous knowledge. The behaviour does not need to be novel for this manuscript to make a significant contribution to the field. *

      Answer: We believe the reviewer highlighted relevant past research that examined the influence of female experiences on mating duration. We agree with the reviewer that SMD behavior does not have to be original in order to contribute significantly to the field. As a result, we examined past reports and updated the introduction as follows;

      “It has been reported that previous sexual experience with females influences the mating duration of male D. melanogaster [15,16,34]; however, the neural circuits and physiology underlying this behavior have not been deeply investigated. Here, we report the sensory integration mechanisms by which sexually experienced males exhibit plastic behavior by limiting their investment in copulation time; we refer to this behavior as "shorter mating duration (SMD)."” (line 85)

      • Both in the introduction and discussion the extended mating duration in response to rivals is raised. A great deal of work has been done on this plasticity and yet the way this is written implies just two papers from these authors (whilst referencing others elsewhere). *

      Answer: We agree with the reviewer. In the introductory and discussion sections, we cited as many key publications explaining the plastic responses of male mating duration as we could.

      __REVIEWER #2

      __

        • Summary: The submitted manuscript reports that Drosophila melanogaster males use information derived from their previous sexual experiences from multiple sensory inputs to optimize their investment in mating. They refer to this plasticity as 'shorter-mating duration (SMD)'. SMD requires sexually dimorphic taste neurons. They identified several neurons in the male foreleg and midleg that express specific sugar, pheromone and mechanosensory receptors. Unfortunately, several aspects of the study design and methods used are inappropriate. Although the statistical approaches used are appropriate, the results are questionable. The discussion and conclusions are therefore too speculative in my view and overstretch the implications of the results as presented. Below I explain each one of these concerns about the study design, methods and results in detail as follows.* Answer: We appreciate the reviewer's assessment, especially the statement that our statistical approaches were appropriate. We will revise our manuscript in response to the reviewer's suggestions.
      1. The conclusions (as the authors point out) hinge on small (often extremely small) effect sizes. This is not an insurmountable problem, so long as the assays are robust across trials. Unfortunately, they are not-the variation in the baseline for control replicates is often as large as, or larger than, the effects from which the conclusions are derived. Given the extreme experimental challenges of small effect size combined with large intertrial variability, it is notable that the authors do not report any likely false negative or false positive data, as would be frequently expected under these conditions. One explanation for the reproducibility of statistical effect seen across many experiments despite these experimental hurdles is manipulation of sample size. The authors acknowledge the extreme variability in sample size offer seemingly harmless explanations, but a closer look shows how problematic this practice is. For example, see Figure 1 (I, J, L) there is a big different between naive and experience males? *

      Answer: We value the reviewer's feedback. Several research have been conducted to investigate the mating duration of male fruit fly. For example, our lab [2,13–15] and others [13–30] have regularly reported that previous rival exposure increases male fruit fly mating duration. Bretman A et al. utilized 49-59 males in their studies to compare the variations in mating duration between circumstances. Crickmore et al. also reported the effect of mating duration differences caused by genetic or experimental modification [8]. They utilized 10-18 male flies in their study to compare the variations in mating duration across circumstances, as shown in Figs. 1G (n=15-18) and 2A (n=10-27). All of these findings indicate that our mating duration sample size is sufficient to examine the effect size variations between the naive and experienced conditions. To confirm our statistical analysis further, we incorporated estimate statistics, which focus on the effect size of one's experiment/intervention rather than significance tests [10]. We have already detailed our statistical analyses under the EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURES section. We conducted hundreds of mating duration assays using this configuration and confirmed that all of our results are reproducible in a blind test. As a result, we believe our mating duration assay has been validated by other groups' findings, several analytic tools, and numerous blind tests conducted by us. We appreciate the reviewers' concerns, but our data meets the reproducibility requirements.

      • I am not sure if you keep using the same control with different experiments (that is okay if those exp is done in the same time) as in figure 1 B, I,J,K,L.But I don't think you did Fig 1B in the same time with Fig 1I, J, K,L. *

      Answer: We appreciate the reviewer's feedback. Yes, all of our tests comparing the differences in mating duration between naive and experienced conditions were conducted under the same conditions and at the same time. We replaced Fig.1B with new data (n=49-51) obtained lately in a new lab in China. As previously stated, SMD behavior could be reproduced by the same Canton S genotype in different locations by different experimenters.

      • It will be clear if you mention in the text how much reduction in percent happened in copulation duration when the males had previous sexual experience? *

      Answer: We appreciate the reviewer’s suggestion and added in the manuscript as follow;

      “We found that the mating duration of various wild-type and w1118 naïve males are significantly longer (wild type 15.7~15.8%, w1118 12.4%) than that of sexually experienced males (Fig. 1B-D, Fig. S1A)” (line 99)

      • 'Drosophila simulans, the sibling species of D. melanogaster also exhibits SMD, thus suggesting that SMD is conserved between close species of D. melanogaster (Fig. S1B).'. If you want come with this conclusion, you need to test D. erecta, D. sechelia and D. yakuba. *

      Answer: We appreciate the reviewer's feedback. We removed the D. simulans data because it is not required for the conclusion of this manuscript. In future research, we will look on the conservation of SMD behavior between species.

      • The authors mention that Gr66a is salt. This is not 100% correct. GR66a is expressed in many bitter sensing neurons and is required for the physiological and behavioral responses to many bitter compounds. check this reference DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2019.11.005. *

      Answer: We made the following changes and cited the article reviewer's suggestion.

      “Of the various gustatory receptors, Gr5a marks cells that recognize sugars and mediate taste acceptance, whereas Gr66a marks cells that recognizes bitter compounds and mediates avoidance (Wang et al, 2004; Dweck & Carlson, 2020).” (line 180)

      • Drosophila melanogaster mating duration is between 21- 23 mins. I never saw copulation duration in normal condition (control) 10-15 mins as in figure fig 2E, Fig 7 C,E,F, Fig 8 E and fig 12 G . To the best of my knowledge, of all of the papers on copulation duration, the only one that ascribes a shortened duration to manipulations of the female is Rideout...Goodwin Nature Neuroscience 2010, who argue that this shortening results from markedly increased female activity/agitation during mating, leading the male to terminate early. *

      Answer: We appreciate the reviewer's feedback. Copulation duration in Drosophila melanogaster male is extremely variable and has been reported to be approximately 20 minutes. However, as other groups documented, male copulation duration can range from 10-15 minutes depending on sperm completion (Fig. 1a-c of Bretman A et al.) [30] and genetic background (Fig. 1C, Fig. 2E, Fig. 5D, and Fig. 7A and E of Crickmore et al) [8]. And, as previously stated, males dominate copulation duration [8,30], not females, and we always utilized the same genotype of females for mating duration experiment. As a result, we believe that these rather short mating duration outcomes are the product of a distinct genetic background. Because we employed the same genotype of males while altering the female experience condition, we believe our mating duration results are all equivalent and comparable.

      • In some experiments, the authors test very few number of replicates which is not convinced me to their conclusion as example Fig 2F and Fig 12 E. Why you test 100, 103 replicates in this exp fig 10 F? How you compare 47 replicates against 9 replicates in fig S10 I? *

      Answer: We appreciate the reviewer's input. As we previously stated in response to Reviewer Question 2, the n number of males exhibited in Figs. 2F and 12E is statistically significant. To corroborate findings with replication, we examined 100, 103 duplicates of Fig. 10F, which represents pyx-RNAi screening results. The results of Fig. S10I are screening data, and we cannot rule out the possibility that TrpA1 knockdown in Gr5a neurons affects the mating success of sexually experienced males. We only placed it there because it was screening results and the differences between naive and experienced conditions were substantial despite the small sample size. However, we deleted Fig. 10F and Fig. S10I data from the current paper in response to Reviewer #1's advice, thus it will not be an issue for the manuscript's conclusion.

      • 'Next, to decipher whether DEG/NaC channel-expressing pheromone sensing neurons require the function of OBP, we expressed lush-RNAi using ppk23-, ppk25- and ppk29-GAL4 drivers to knockdown LUSH in each channel-expressing neuron. The knockdown of LUSH in ppk25- and ppk29-GAL4 labeled cells, but not in ppk23-GAL4 labeled cells, led to a disturbance in SMD behavior, thus suggesting that LUSH functions in ppk25- and ppk29-positive neurons to detect pheromones and elicit SMD behavior (Fig. 9G-I). The knockdown of SNMP1 in ppk29-GAL4- labeled neurons also inhibited SMD behavior (Fig. 9J), thus suggesting that SNMP1 also functions in ppk29-positive neurons to induce SMD behavior.' What about ppk25? **

      *

      Answer: As indicated by the reviewer, we included ppk25-GAL4/snmp1-RNAi data in Fig. S9I, indicating that snmp1 expression in ppk25-positive cells is similarly implicated in SMD behavior.

      • There are no page or line numbers throughout the ms! *

      Answer: We included page and line numbers.

      • The use of subheadings in the results section makes reading much easier.*

      Answer: We added subheadings in the results section.

      • 'We found that the mating duration of various wild-type and w 1118 naïve males are significantly longer than that of sexually experienced males (Fig. 1B-D, Fig. S1A)' . I think you should change various wild type to CS and WT Berlin as in legend and figure 1B,C .*

      Answer: The revised sentence is as follows:

      “We found that the mating duration of Canton S, WT-Berlin, Oregon-R, and w1118 naïve males are significantly longer (wild type 15.7~15.8%, w1118 12.4%) than that of sexually experienced males (Fig. 1B-D, Fig. S1A)” (line 102)

      • Suggested exp , Fig S1E-H , they might test 2,6, 12 hours males separation from females to test exactly when this behavior change over time. *

      Answer: We value the reviewer's recommendation. As seen in Fig. S4B of Kim et al., we have previously conducted experiments for examining the memory circuit of SMD [6]. Briefly, the male with a shorter mating duration recovers completely after 12 to 24 hours of isolation from females. As we are currently preparing the memory section of the SMD study, this information will be included in a future manuscript.

      • General comment in figures, you could remove the common y axis as example in figure 1 B,C,D , difference between means and mating duration. *

      Answer: We welcome the reviewer's idea, however in this situation we believe that the y axis of each data set is independent from one another and will thus retain the originals. We feel this would be more useful for the general audiences.

      • You might move the number of replicates to the legend. *

      Answer: We appreciate the reviewer's idea, however we feel that adding more information to the graphic will aid the general audience in comprehending our statistics.

      • Latin name should be italic as example Drosophila simulans.*

      Answer: We fixed it.

      Description of analyses that authors prefer not to carry out

      N/A

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      24. Bretman A, Westmancoat JD, Gage MJG, Chapman T. COSTS AND BENEFITS OF LIFETIME EXPOSURE TO MATING RIVALS IN MALE DROSOPHILA MELANOGASTER. Evolution. 2013;67: 2413–2422. doi:10.1111/evo.12125
      25. Bretman A, Fricke C, Westmancoat JD, Chapman T. Effect of competitive cues on reproductive morphology and behavioral plasticity in male fruitflies. Behav Ecol. 2016;27: 452–461. doi:10.1093/beheco/arv170
      26. Price TAR, Lizé A, Marcello M, Bretman A. Experience of mating rivals causes males to modulate sperm transfer in the fly Drosophila pseudoobscura. J Insect Physiol. 2012;58: 1669–1675. doi:10.1016/j.jinsphys.2012.10.008
      27. Bretman A, Westmancoat JD, Gage MJG, Chapman T. Males Use Multiple, Redundant Cues to Detect Mating Rivals. Curr Biol. 2011;21: 617–622. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2011.03.008
      28. Fowler EK, Leigh S, Rostant WG, Thomas A, Bretman A, Chapman T. Memory of social experience affects female fecundity via perception of fly deposits. Bmc Biol. 2022;20: 244. doi:10.1186/s12915-022-01438-5
      29. Dore AA, Rostant WG, Bretman A, Chapman T. Plastic male mating behavior evolves in response to the competitive environment*. Evolution. 2021;75: 101–115. doi:10.1111/evo.14089
      30. Bretman A, Fricke C, Chapman T. Plastic responses of male Drosophila melanogaster to the level of sperm competition increase male reproductive fitness. Proc Royal Soc B Biological Sci. 2009;276: 1705–1711. doi:10.1098/rspb.2008.1878
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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary:

      The submitted manuscript reports that Drosophila melanogaster males use information derived from their previous sexual experiences from multiple sensory inputs to optimize their investment in mating. They refer to this plasticity as 'shorter-mating duration (SMD)'. SMD requires sexually dimorphic taste neurons. They identified several neurons in the male foreleg and midleg that express specific sugar, pheromone and mechanosensory receptors. Unfortunately, several aspects of the study design and methods used are inappropriate. Although the statistical approaches used are appropriate, the results are questionable. The discussion and conclusions are therefore too speculative in my view and overstretch the implications of the results as presented. Below I explain each one of these concerns about the study design, methods and results in detail as follows.

      Major comments:

      1. The conclusions (as the authors point out) hinge on small (often extremely small) effect sizes. This is not an insurmountable problem, so long as the assays are robust across trials. Unfortunately, they are not-the variation in the baseline for control replicates is often as large as, or larger than, the effects from which the conclusions are derived. Given the extreme experimental challenges of small effect size combined with large intertrial variability, it is notable that the authors do not report any likely false negative or false positive data, as would be frequently expected under these conditions. One explanation for the reproducibility of statistical effect seen across many experiments despite these experimental hurdles is manipulation of sample size. The authors acknowledge the extreme variability in sample size offer seemingly harmless explanations, but a closer look shows how problematic this practice is. For example, see Figure 1 (I, J, L) there is a big different between naive and experience males?
      2. I am not sure if you keep using the same control with different experiments (that is okay if those exp is done in the same time) as in figure 1 B, I,J,K,L.But I don't think you did Fig 1B in the same time with Fig 1I, J, K,L.
      3. It will be clear if you mention in the text how much reduction in percent happened in copulation duration when the males had previous sexual experience?
      4. 'Drosophila simulans, the sibling species of D. melanogaster also exhibits SMD, thus suggesting that SMD is conserved between close species of D. melanogaster (Fig. S1B).'. If you want come with this conclusion, you need to test D. erecta, D. sechelia and D. yakuba.
      5. The authors mention that Gr66a is salt. This is not 100% correct. GR66a is expressed in many bitter sensing neurons and is required for the physiological and behavioral responses to many bitter compounds. check this reference DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2019.11.005.
      6. Drosophila melanogaster mating duration is between 21- 23 mins. I never saw copulation duration in normal condition (control) 10-15 mins as in figure fig 2E, Fig 7 C,E,F, Fig 8 E and fig 12 G . To the best of my knowledge, of all of the papers on copulation duration, the only one that ascribes a shortened duration to manipulations of the female is Rideout...Goodwin Nature Neuroscience 2010, who argue that this shortening results from markedly increased female activity/agitation during mating, leading the male to terminate early.
      7. In some experiments, the authors test very few number of replicates which is not convinced me to their conclusion as example Fig 2F and Fig 12 E
      8. Why you test 100, 103 replicates in this exp fig 10 F?
      9. How you compare 47 replicates against 9 replicates in fig S10 I?
      10. 'The knockdown of LUSH, an odorant-binding protein' Lush is expressed in trichoid sensilla in olfactory organs , from the beginning, they exclude the role of olfaction and later one they said 'suggesting that the expression of the pheromone sensing proteins LUSH and Snmp1 in Gr5a-positive gustatory neurons is critical for generating SMD behavior.' ? Therefore, I recommend If available, please provide a reference for the statement in the Methods section that the Orco1 line was "validated via electrophysiology", or include the electrophysiology data itself in this manuscript as supplementary figure. Ideally, positive behavioral controls for this line would also be included in the manuscript.
      11. 'Next, to decipher whether DEG/NaC channel-expressing pheromone sensing neurons require the function of OBP, we expressed lush-RNAi using ppk23-, ppk25- and ppk29-GAL4 drivers to knockdown LUSH in each channel-expressing neuron. The knockdown of LUSH in ppk25- and ppk29-GAL4 labeled cells, but not in ppk23-GAL4 labeled cells, led to a disturbance in SMD behavior, thus suggesting that LUSH functions in ppk25- and ppk29-positive neurons to detect pheromones and elicit SMD behavior (Fig. 9G-I). The knockdown of SNMP1 in ppk29-GAL4- labeled neurons also inhibited SMD behavior (Fig. 9J), thus suggesting that SNMP1 also functions in ppk29-positive neurons to induce SMD behavior.' What about ppk25?

      Minor comments:

      1. There are no page or line numbers throughout the ms!
      2. The use of subheadings in the results section makes reading much easier.
      3. 'We found that the mating duration of various wild-type and w 1118 naïve males are significantly longer than that of sexually experienced males (Fig. 1B-D, Fig. S1A)' . I think you should change various wild type to CS and WT Berlin as in legend and figure 1B,C .
      4. Suggested exp , Fig S1E-H , they might test 2,6, 12 hours males separation from females to test exactly when this behavior change over time.
      5. What is this (GustDx6)? I suggest using Poxn mutant line.
      6. General comment in figures, you could remove the common y axis as example in figure 1 B,C,D , difference between means and mating duration.
      7. You might move the number of replicates to the legend.
      8. Latin name should be italic as example Drosophila simulans.

      Referees cross-commenting

      I found the comments of the other reviewer reasonable and fair. I agree that the time for fixing all these comments is about six months.

      Significance

      The idea of the work is interesting, but the design of experiments in some places is inappropriate (see above). The discussion mainly depends on doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2013.09.034. I study chemoreception and sexual communication in Drosophila and insect vectors of human disease.

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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      My copy of this ms does not have page numbers or line numbers, this makes it extremely difficult to identify where I am making queries/ suggestions. I don't know whether this is a decision of the journal or authors, but please change this in the future.

      Overall I think this would be difficult for a general audience as the rationale and explanation of experiments needs to be clearer.

      Results paragraph 1 says that white mutant background had no effect "unlike that of LMD behavior as reported previously", ignoring that there has been a contrary report that extension of mating duration after exposure to a rival does not involve visual cues and so is not affected by the white mutation (Bretman et al 2011 Curr Biol).

      A general point in the methodology, it's not very helpful just to say "as in a previous study" without giving at least a brief idea of what that was (e.g. the explanation of egg counting procedures).

      A "sperm depletion" assay is described in the results that I cannot find any methodology for.

      Was the "excessive mating" with SPR females actually observed, or inferred from previous work? Needs to be clear. In what way do virgins expressing fruitless behave like mated females? It is so unclear how all the evidence in this paragraph leads to the conclusion that both cues from females and successful copulation. Especially as in the next paragraph experience with feminized females (with which the focal males cannot copulate) elicits the response.

      It might be helpful to combine the results into a table, so it is easy to see under which conditions males reduce mating duration.

      Why are no statistics reported in the results? Identifying sig diffs on figures is not sufficient. I'm very sceptical that "mating duration of males showed normal distribution" for all comparisons, but then it's also difficult to identify which were analysed in this way (if statistics were properly reported this would not be an issue).

      Gr5a/ Gr66a mediate acceptance/ avoidance of what? Why would you hypothesise these in particular to be involved?

      As Orco was not found to affect the behaviour, why test Or67d?

      "Mate guarding" suddenly appears in the modelling section. Can a difference of a couple of minutes in a mating duration of 15-20min really be considered mate guarding? A similar variation in response to rival males is not considered mate guarding, but is linked to adjustments in ejaculate expenditure (admittedly not in a very straight forward way). Surely in a system like this the benefits arise more from how many females the male can mate with in a given time? How does this model relate to any of the previous models of mate guarding?

      In this section the work of Linklater et al 2007 is important, they showed progeny declined over successive matings, and related this to exhaustion of Acps rather than sperm. I would urge the authors to consider that what they observe does not necessarily have an adaptive explanation.

      I can't find a data accessibility statement.

      Significance

      A general point, there is simply too much in this ms. It covers too much ground and so doesn't give proper descriptions, discuss the consequences of the data fully or integrate properly with existing literature. Quantity does not equal impact.

      That said, a current grand challenge in understanding behaviour is discovering the mechanisms that enable individuals to respond plastically to changing environments. This speaks directly to that challenge.

      However, this behavioural observation is not novel, as claimed. Generally the idea of refractoriness is widely known, and specifically the reduction in mating duration over successive matings in D. melanogaster was shown by Linklater et al 2007 Evolution. Moreover, the time between exposure to females has been shown to be important. Linklater et al 2007 gave males mating attempts in quick succession and observed the decrease in mating duration, whereas given recovery time of 3 days, males either mate equally as long, or even longer across their life course (Bretman et al 2011 Proc B, Bretman et al 2013 Evolution). These papers should be discussed, and more broadly the work understood in the light of previous knowledge. The behaviour does not need to be novel for this manuscript to make a significant contribution to the field.

      Both in the introduction and discussion the extended mating duration in response to rivals is raised. A great deal of work has been done on this plasticity and yet the way this is written implies just two papers from these authors (whilst referencing others elsewhere).

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      Reply to the reviewers

      Reviewer #1:

      Minor edits

      1. Line 91. Is a bit misleading to say "many other vibrios" possess T3SS. This conveys that this is perhaps the majority, but T3SS in vibrios is at best 50/50. I think best just to delete this sentence.

      We deleted this comment, as suggested.

      1. Revised to "Thus, in this study, we set out to..." Since the entire paragraph starts with "recent study" I missed that this was summary of new data rather than preview of new results.

      The sentence was revised as suggested.

      1. Line 503. Correct "xxx-584" or more detail on what this means.

      We Thank the reviewer for pointing out this typo._ This refers to the deletion made in tie1, in the region corresponding to nucleotides 485-584 of this gene. The text was corrected accordingly.

      1. Line 603. Salmonella should be italicized.

      Corrected.

      1. The labelling of the figures is pretty complicated with the long genetic designations. Is it reasonable to for example name the ∆vprh/∆hns1 strain with an abbreviation (such as ∆VH)? Or instead create a strain name, common used approaches would be HC## (for Hadar Cohen) or TAU# for Tel Aviv University. If you go this route, be sure to update the strain list. The current method can be followed, the figures are just complicated.

      We thank the reviewer for raising this concern. We acknowledge the difficulty in following the many different strains and mutations. Nevertheless, after considering the proposed modifications to the strain names, we believe that they will not add much clarity, and may even cause some confusion. Therefore, we respectfully decided to keep the current nomenclature in place.

      Reviewer #2:

      Minor edits

      1. The authors used a hyperactive T6SS (HNS mutant) to investigate its toxicity. Would the authors be able to use a wild type strain to reproduce the function of T6SS?

      We have yet to reveal the external cues that lead to full activation of T6SS3 in vitro. Therefore, in the current study we used genetic tools, such as hns deletion or Ats3 over-expression, to monitor the effect of this system on immune cells. We will dissect the activating conditions in future studies, but we believe that the use of genetic tools should not affect the validity of the results in the current study, nor their timely publication.

      1. The authors showed that Tie1 and Tie2 are secreted by T6SS3. It is important to show if they are actually delivered into the host cells during infection. Otherwise it is hard to conclude that they are truly effectors. The primary concern is the lack of in vivo studies to show that Tie1 and Tie2 are actually effectors that play a role in activation of NLRP3 inflammasome._

      We present 3 pieces of evidence that, when taken together, support the conclusion that Tie1 and Tie2 are T6SS3 effectors: 1) the proteins are secreted in a T6SS3-dependent manner; 2) their deletion does not hamper overall T6SS3 activity; and 3) their deletion causes the same loss of NLRP3-mediated inflammasome activation and pyroptosis as does inactivation of T6SS3 by deletion of its structural component, tssL3. Although we agree with the reviewer that directly showing delivery of Tie1 and Tie2 into host cells will further strengthen our conclusion, such experiments are quite challenging and difficult to interpret, especially with T6SS effectors that can use diverse mechanisms for secretion through the system. This point was also noted by reviewer #3: “…I believe they were suggesting to demonstrate secretion in host cells. Although this would be nice, it is non-standard and technically not feasible. These types of experiments require genetically fusing the effector with either an enzymatic moiety (e.g. Beta lactamase) or fragment of split GFP. Although such approaches have been previously performed, they often result in either blocked or aberrant secretion due to the presence of the added fragment."

      Regarding the reviewer’s comment on the lack of in vivo studies: we agree that these are extremely important, yet they are beyond the scope of the current work, as concurred by reviewers #1 and #3:

      Reviewer#1 with regard to Reviewer#2: "I don't think mouse (or aquatic animal) studies are essential for this study. The work contributes nicely to our understanding molecular mechanisms of this T6SS system. As noted in my review, there are many additional lines of study that can be pursued from this work, including animal studies, but this should not preclude publication of this work that is itself an intact unit."

      Reviewer#3 regarding reviewer #1's comment on Reviewer#2: "I don't believe that reviewer #2 was suggesting to perform mouse or aquatic animal studies by suggesting in vivo demonstration of secretion…”

      Reviewer #3:

      Major comments:

      1. If the authors believe that GSDME partially compensates in the absence of GSDMD, have they infected a GSDME/GSDMD double knockouts to see if there is an additive effect?

      Indeed, this is a very interesting and specific question for the cell death field. We do not currently possess such a GSDME/GSDMD double knockout mouse, and generating one will be a long endeavor. Since its absence does not diminish the importance or the conclusions of the current work, we think that it should not warrant a delay in publication. We do plan to address this question in future studies.

      1. It is clear that Ats3 regulates T6SS3, but not the T6SS1; however, there no evidence suggesting that Atg3 does not regulate other gene clusters. For example, have the authors performed RNA seq to compare the transcriptomes of WT and an Ats3 mutant? If not, the authors should refrain using the words "specific activation".

      We thank the reviewer for this important note. Indeed, we lack additional data indicating that Ats3’s effect is indeed restricted only to T6SS3. Therefore, we modified the text accordingly and removed mentions of specific T6SS3 activation.

      1. In figure 6B, it's unclear why the bacteria infecting cytochalasin D-treated cells grow more than the T6SS3 mutants in the absence of cytochalasin D.

      The difference probably stems from the fact that phagocytosis, the major mechanisms by which BMDMs kill bacteria, is hampered in the presence of cytochalasin D, thus allowing bacteria to grow more than when the BMDMs phagocytose them. The results show that in the absence of cytochalasin D, an active T6SS3 counteracts the killing effect by BMDMs with functional phagocytosis.

      Minor comments:

      1. Figure 1A and other secretion assays: The Western blots include loading control (LC) blots. These are non-standard, non-informative, and not required with the inclusion of the western blots on the "cells" fraction. I would suggest removing these as they may confuse the reader.

      We respectfully disagree. Loading controls are standard in bacterial secretion assays, and they are important since they confirm comparable loading and allow proper analysis of the results, especially since we aim to determine whether certain mutations affect the expression of T6SS components. Notably, some groups choose to blot for a cytoplasmic protein (e.g., RpoB in Allsop et al., PNAS, 2017; Liang et al., PLoS Pathogens, 2021) instead of showing overall loaded proteins, as shown in our figures.

      1. Line 503: "xxx" should reflect the actual nucleotide nubmers_

      We thank the reviewer for pointing out this typo._ This refers to the deletion made in tie1, in the region corresponding to nucleotides 485-584 of this gene. The text was corrected accordingly.

      1. Since V. proteolyticus is an aquatic pathogen, have the authors tried to infect corals, fish, and crustaceans (or derived cells) with WT and effector mutants?

      This is an interesting point, and indeed we are setting up such systems and we plan to perform such experiments in the future as part of follow up projects. However, these in vivo studies are beyond the scope of the current manuscript, as also noted by the reviewer in the cross-consultation comments: “…my previous comment on infecting aquatic animals or cells derived from them is non-standard and not necessary…”

      1. Are the targeted host proteins in this study (performed with murine BMDM) conserved in the natural hosts for V. proteolyticus?

      We hypothesize that the conservation is not in the pathway components that are activated upon infection, but rather in the ability of the host cell to sense danger (i.e., to sense the effect of T6SS3 effectors on the host cell or one of its components), which is the role of the NLRP3 inflammasome in mammalian cells. It is well documented that major differences in immune mechanisms exist between mammals and the potential natural marine hosts of V. proteolyticus (e.g., corals, arthropods, and fish); therefore, the conservation at the protein level is low. Nevertheless, basic signaling pathways, such as programed cell death, are conserved between the different phyla. For example, a caspase-1 homolog which was found in arthropods (Chu, B. et al. PLoS One (2014). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0085343) probably induces an apoptotic-like cell death mechanism, similar to apoptosis in C. elegans. We now provide further discussion on this point in the text (lines 648-659).

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      Referee #3

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Bacterial type VI secretion systems (T6SSs) are best-characterized in their ability to drive interbacterial competition; however, several systems target host cells and are important for pathogen-host interactions. Based on the presence of T6SS in almost a quarter of sequenced Gram-negative bacterial genomes, including many well-known pathogens, the T6SS is an understudied pathway that is worthy of further inspection. This manuscript by Cohen et al. investigates the role three T6SSs in Vibrio proteolyticus by 1) identifying two of these systems play a role in targeting host cells, 2) characterizing the host pyroptotic pathways targeted by these systems, and 3) identifying two secreted toxins responsible for the host response. Furthermore, this manuscript identifies a specific transcriptional regulator of the T6SS3 and suggests that the host cell responds with an alternative/compensatory pathway upon inhibition of the canonical pyroptosis pathway.

      Major comments:

      • If the authors believe that GSDME partially compensates in the absence of GSDMD, have they infected a GSDME / GSDMD double knockouts to see if there is an additive effect?
      • It is clear that Ats3 regulates T6SS3, but not the T6SS1; however, there no evidence suggesting that Atg3 does not regulate other gene clusters. For example, have the authors performed RNA seq to compare the transcriptomes of WT and an Ats3 mutant? If not, the authors should refrain using the words "specific activation".
      • In figure 6B, it's unclear why the bacteria infecting cytochalasin D-treated cells grow more than the T6SS3 mutants in the absence of cytochalasin D.

      Minor comments:

      • Figure 1A and other secretion assays: The Western blots include loading control (LC) blots. These are non-standard, non-informative, and not required with the inclusion of the the western blots on the "cells" fraction. I would suggest removing these as they may confuse the reader.
      • Line 503: "xxx" should reflect the actual nucleotide nubmers
      • Since V. proteolyticus is an aquatic pathogen, have the authors tried to infect corals, fish, and crustaceans (or derived cells) with WT and effector mutants?
      • Are the targeted host proteins in this study (performed with murine BMDM) conserved in the natural hosts for V. proteolyticus?

      Referees cross-commenting

      Regarding Reviewer #1's comment on 2022-07-26, I don't believe that reviewer #2 was suggesting to perform mouse or aquatic animal studies by suggesting in vivo demonstration of secretion. (At least, I hope they weren't.) I believe they were suggesting to demonstrate secretion in host cells. Although this would be nice, it is non-standard and technically not feasible. These types of experiments require genetically fusing the effector with either an enzymatic moiety (e.g. Beta lactamase) or fragment of split GFP. Although such approaches have been previously performed, they often result in either blocked or aberrant secretion due to the presence of the added fragment.

      Likewise, my previous comment on infecting aquatic animals or cells derived from them is non-standard and not necessary. It would however be interesting to note (either through a supplementary figure or in the text) if the targeted host proteins are conserved between mice and aquatic animals.

      Significance

      This manuscript provides both novel and innovative details of a previously uncharacterized secretion system. The interested audience includes readers who are interested in host-targeted secretion systems, bacterial effectors, and mechanisms of inflammasome activation. As with any key discovery, there are many avenues of investigation that will follow from this study.

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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      The authors used a hyperactive T6SS (HNS mutant) to investigate its toxicity. Would the authors be able to use a wild type strain to reproduce the function of T6SS?<br /> The authors showed that Tie1 and Tie2 are secreted by T6SS3. It is important to show if they are actually delivered into the host cells during infection. Otherwise it is hard to conclude that they are truly effectors.<br /> The primary concern is the lack of in vivo studies to show that Tie1 and Tie2 are actually effectors that play a role in activation of NLRP3 inflammasome.

      Significance

      The authors demonstrated in vitro that T6SS of Vibrio plays an important role in inflammasome activation. This is potentially important as this may suggest that T6SS may be a virulence factor. However, as mentioned above, it is important to show in vivo data to demonstrate this.

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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      This paper by Cohen et al described discovery of the function of novel genes in the T6SS operon of Vibrio proteolyticus, a Vibrio isolated from corals. V. proteolyticus also impacts other sea animals. The T6SS3 in particular is found to kill eukarytoic phagocytic cells following engulfment of bacteria into the phagocyte. This strategy of killing phagocytic cells following entry has been shown for other Vibrios. The net goal is protection of the population by the bystander effector. The study first shows that deletion of H-NS (a global negative regulator) stimulates T6SS facilitating ease of work by pushing the system to great cell killing. This allowed them to probe the mechanism of cell death and reveal it as NLRP3 dependent, capase 1 dependent pyroptosis via pore formation by Gasdermin D. Activation of the inflammasome is also linked to cleavage and release of IL-1beta. When GSDMD is absent, there was a slower cell killing by GSDME via capsase 3 activation. The stimulation of this system is additive by two newly recognized T6SS effectors Tie1 and Tie2.

      The study is complete, the experiments are well conducted and well controlled. The experiments show reproducibility. The manuscript text is clear, Overall. I suggest no changes in the results or experiments and suggest only a few minor edits of the text.

      Minor edits

      Line 91. Is a bit misleading to say "many other vibrios" possess T3SS. This conveys that this is perhaps the majority, but T3SS in vibrios is at best 50/50. I think best just to delete this sentence.

      Line 102. Revised to "Thus, in this study, we set out to..." Since the entire paragraph starts with "recent study" I missed that this was summary of new data rather than preview of new results.

      Line 503. Correct "xxx-584" or more detail on what this means.

      Line 603. Salmonella should be italicized.

      Figures. The labelling of the figures is pretty complicated with the long genetic designations. Is it reasonable to for example name the ∆vprh/∆hns1 strain with an abbreviation (such as ∆VH)? Or instead create a strain name, common used approaches would be HC## (for Hadar Cohen) or TAU# for Tel Aviv University. If you go this route, be sure to update the strain list. The current method can be followed, the figures are just complicated.

      Referees cross-commenting

      With regard to Reviewer#2, I don't think mouse (or aquatic animal) studies are essential for this study. The work contributes nicely to our understanding molecular mechanisms of this T6SS system. As noted in my review, there are many additional lines of study that can be pursued from this work, including animal studies, but this should not preclude publication of this work that is itself an intact unit.

      Significance

      The work is significant in that it links T6SS to a eukaryotic killing system and discovers novel details regarding the mechanisms of death, that may impact our knowledge of other Vibrio T6SS (including V. cholerae) that also target eukaryotic cell actin. There are remaining questions that could be probed, but these are in my opinion major studies that would easily themselves comprise new papers if done properly and thus are not essential for this paper. These include the struture and biochemical activity of Tie1 and Tie2 and the mechanism of caspase-8 independent activation of caspase-3 to then cleave GSDME. Why NLRP3 is required for capase 3 activation is also an open question. I look forward to following this work for some time to come. The authors have revealed very interesting effectors and interesting cell biological process that will merit multiple years and multiple manuscripts to unravel. This work will be of interest to the community interested in bacterial toxin systems (microbial pathogenesis), the bacterial effector mechanism field (biochemistry and cell biology), and the inflammasome activation field (immune systems). The work will be of interest (with essentially no modification) directed at these fields of interest.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      Reviewer #1:

      Major comments:

      In general, the data support the conclusions. I cannot comment on the atomistic simulation experiment as it is outside of my expertise. I had some difficulties interpreting Figure 2 as the contrast in the colour panels made it difficult to assess the different staining patterns. I would recommend changing the blue to cyan for easier visibility. While I agree that there are some differences between Fig 2F and Fig 2G it is not simple for the non-expert to distinguish the gonadal mesoderm from the somatic mesoderm. I think the enlarged panels could do with also showing the overlap in staining, or at least a tracing of the different cell populations so that the gonadal mesoderm can be clearly defined. Please also add some scale bars to the figure. Figure 3 demonstrates clear differences in gonad morphology between male and female mutants but the contrast in the colour panels A-G could also be improved. Panels H-J are very clear.

      Response: As suggested by Referees 1 and 3 we have modified the colour channels in all figures. We have also enlarged the figures taking away the uninformative region and focused around the enlarged gonads and added scale bars. For Fig 2F-G, we have added a close up of the region of interest both in colour and in black and white. These changes have increased the contrast and facilitate the data interpretation to non-expert readers.

      The rescue experiment in Figure 4 is clearly presented but could the DLC3 mutants in the graph (panel b) please be named similarly to the schematic proteins shown in panel a.

      Response: We have changed the names to maintain nomenclature uniformity.

      I found the difference between the RhoGAP domain mutants and the StART domain mutants of Cv-c to be clearly defined, and correlate with DLC3 function. This is a very interesting result that indicates multiple molecular functions for the Cv-c /DLC family.

      Response: The methods are well described, statistics adequate and the data well described._

      Minor Comments:

      My only suggestion for the text is to provide a more through description of the StART domain in the introduction.

      Response: We have included the following paragraph in the introduction describing the StART domain:

      “This family of proteins share different domains: besides the Rho GTPase Activating Protein domain (GAP), they present a protein-protein interacting Sterile Alpha Motif (SAM) at the N terminal end and a Steroidogenic Acute Regulatory protein (StAR)-related lipid transfer (StART) domain at the C terminal. StART domains have been shown in other proteins to be involved in lipid interaction, protein localization and function.”

      Reviewer #2:

      My only issue with the present study is to how well the present experimental findings in Drosophila translate to humans. As far as I can tell the present studies show that inactivating mutations in Cv-c in Drosophila result in failure of germ cell enclosure by somatic cells into the testis, resulting in sterility. In humans, and in experimental mouse transgenic lines, it has been well established that absence of germ cells does not of itself lead to failure of testis differentiation and onward development, nor does it lead automatically to sex reversal or impairment of masculinization. For the latter to occur, there must be impairment/failure of fetal Leydig cell function such that insufficient androgen is produced to effect genital/bodywide masculinization. Obviously, this will happen if no testis forms as appears to be the case in the new human DLC3 mutant reported in the present manuscript (although detail on this is unfortunately lacking). This appears to be different to the previous published DLC3/STARD8 mutant sisters, in whom the phenotype appears to reflect failure of steroidogenesis. Is the proposal that DLC3/STARD8 plays a role in both testis differentiation and in Leydig cell function (steroidogenesis) or is this due to different DLC3 genes? I think the authors need to address these key issues in their discussion, if only to highlight that there are at present many gaps in our understanding.

      The reviewer says:

      “As far as I can tell the present studies show that inactivating mutations in Cv-c in Drosophila result in failure of germ cell enclosure by somatic cells into the testis, resulting in sterility.”

      Response: This sentence does not represent the spirit of our findings accurately and this probably reflects the fact that we stressed the interaction between somatic mesodermal cells and germ cells in Drosophila which probably concealed that the main defects in Cv-c mutants are caused by the abnormal interaction of the mesodermal cells with germ cells but also among themselves. Our study provides insights about a new conserved pathway required in the mesodermal cells for the maintenance of an already formed testis, and only indirectly can be considered to deal with sterility. We show that Cv-c is required in the mesodermal cells for the correct maintenance of the testis structure, that when it fails leads to the testis dysgenesis which, among other defects, releases the germ cells. We show that in the absence of Cv-c function in the testis, the mesodermal pigment cells do not form a continuous layer around the testis and the ECM surrounding the testis breaks. We also show that the interstitial gonadal cells fail to ensheath the germ cells and as a result of all these the germ cells become dispersed. These perturbations can be partially corrected by expression in the testis mesoderm of human DLC3 or Drosophila Cv-c that in both cases require a functional StART domain. Thus, our results suggest that Cv-c/DLC3 have a fundamental function on the mesodermal testis cells that has been conserved. These results indicate that, as in Drosophila, the primary cause for the gonadal dysgenesis in DLC3 human patients is due to the abnormal maintenance of the testis mesoderm cells, which include both Sertoli and Leydig cells. Thus, our proposal is that DLC3/STARD8 plays a role in testis maintenance through its function in mesodermal cells which will probably affects both Sertoli and Leydig cell function.

      To clarify the issue raised by the referee we have modified both, the introduction and the discussion to highlight that although humans and Drosophila diverged millions of years ago there are similarities regarding gonad stabilisation.

      We have modified the introduction to clarify this issue:

      “Gonadogenesis can be subdivided into three stages: specification of precursor germ cells, directional migration towards the somatic gonadal precursors and gonad compaction. In mammals, somatic cells, i.e. Sertoli cells in male and Granulosa cells in females, play a central role in sex determination with the germ cells differentiating into sperms or oocytes depending on their somatic mesoderm environment. In humans, Primordial Germ Cells (PGCs) are formed near the allantois during gastrulation around the 4th gestational week (GW) and migrate to the genital ridge where they form the anlage necessary for gonadal development (GW5-6). Somatic mesodermal cells are required for both PGCs migration and the formation of a proper gonad. Once PGCs reach their destination, the somatic gonadal cells join them (around GW 7-8 in males, GW10 in females) and provide a suitable environment for survival and self-renewal until gamete differentiation {Jemc, 2011 #413}. Thus, mutations in genes regulating somatic Sertoli and Granulosa support cell function in humans are often associated with complete or partial gonadal dysgenesis in both sexes and sex reversal in males {Zarkower, 2021 #430; Knower, 2011 #418; Brunello, 2021 #399}. Other mesodermal cells, the Leydig cells, also play an important role in the testis by being the primary source of testosterone and other androgens and maintaining secondary sexual characteristics.”

      Also we have added a paragraph in the discussion to emphasize this argument:

      “We show that in the absence of Cv-c function in the testis, the mesodermal pigment cells do not form a continuous layer around the testis and the ECM surrounding the testis breaks. We also show that the interstitial gonadal cells fail to ensheath the germ cells and as a result of all these the germ cells become dispersed from the testis. These perturbations can be partially corrected by expression in the testis mesoderm of human DLC3 or Drosophila Cv-c that in both cases require a functional StART domain. Thus, our results suggest that Cv-c/DLC3 have a fundamental function on the mesodermal testis cells that has been conserved. These results indicate that, as in Drosophila, the primary cause for the gonadal dysgenesis in DLC3 human patients is due to the abnormal maintenance of the testis mesoderm cells, which include both Sertoli and Leydig cells”.

      I would also suggest that the authors highlight another potentially more important spin-off from such studies, namely that understanding of the regulation of DLC3/STARD8 genes, and what might perturb their expression/action would appear to present a whole new area for exploration in relation to testicular dysgenesis/masculinization disorders.

      Response: We have modified the last part of the discussion to introduce referee 2’s suggestion:

      “Our work points to DLC3/Cv-c as a novel gene required specifically in testis formation. Adding DLC3 to the list of genes involved in 46X,Y complete dysgenesis opens up a new avenue to analyse the molecular and cellular mechanisms behind these disorders that could help in diagnosis and the development of future treatments”.

      Reviewer #3 :

      Major comments:

      1. This study has shown the expression pattern of cv-c and the consequence of cv-c mutation on different aspects of gonad development. However, one major comment is there is no quantification of the expression levels as well as the scoring of the mutant phenotypes.
      2. In Figure 2, for instance, I recommend that the authors display the quantification of the fluorescence intensity of the cv-c expression under all circumstances (in situ hybridization as well as protein-trap based GFP expression) to better depict the differences among the male vs female gonad.

      Response: We don’t think quantifying the stainings will add much to the results. We believe that the changes performed increasing the images’ contrast and their amplification are sufficient to illustrate our statement about cv-c being expressed in testis but not in ovaries.

      1. In Figure 3, the authors show the different gonad developmental defects associated with the cv-c mutation. Specifically, the authors show that the gonad mesoderm cells are displaced with the pigment cells failing to ensheath the germ cells. In addition, the authors also suggest that there is an increased frequency of germ cell blebbing, an indication of migratory activity. However, there is no quantification of these findings. I think the authors should display a quantitative estimation of % of the mutant gonad depicting these phenotypes vs the normal gonad to have a perspective of how penetrant the phenotypes are.

      Response: As referee suggested, we have quantified bleb phenotype. The results are presented in figure 3, panel J.

      1. In Figure 4, the authors attempt to rescue the Cv-C mutation linked gonadal defects by overexpressing different Cv-C protein variants. The rescue experiments are not very clear. The graph shows the % of normal testes under different genotypic combinations. It is not very clear what the authors mean by normal (in what context)? Since the mutation results in different defects of gonad development, I think recommend that represent the rescue in terms of these defects. It would be interesting to see for instance, what happens to the blebbing or germ cell ensheathment phenoype upon rescue. How many % of testes show the rescue as compared to cv-c mutants?

      Response: The percentages are quantified considering if the testes have any germ cell outside the gonad. We have added a line to clarify this point in the figure legend: “…quantified as encapsulated gonads with all germ cells inside the testis as assessed by Fisher-test”.

      Nevertheless, we are going to quantify the number of ECM breaks and show the results in the reviewed manuscript.

      1. Did the authors try cell-specific depletion of cv-c and examined the consequence on gonad development?

      Response: cv-c mutants are embryonic lethal because of Cv-c’s widespread requirement on various embryonic tissues during development. Induction of FRT clones in the embryonic testis mesoderm was unsuccessful because of the low number of divisions during embryogenesis. We also tried to knock down cv-c expression with 3 different RNAi lines. Unfortunately, overexpression of these RNAi with different testis Gal4 drivers did not decrease cv-c mRNA levels significantly in the mesoderm or in other tissues where cv-c is expressed. Despite these experiments unsatisfactory outcome, our finding that cv-c is expressed in the testis mesoderm cells, and the fact that we can rescue the testis phenotypes by expressing Cv-c with gonadal mesodermal specific Gal4 lines supports a testis mesoderm requirement of cv-c for its gonadal function.

      1. Another major concern is the lack of mechanistic insight of cv-c. For example, how does loss of cv-c result in gonadal dysgenesis? The authors suggested that StART domains regulate via lipid binding. The authors could examine if StART domain function is dependent on lipid-mediated interactions.

      Response: We agree with the referee that the molecular characterisation of the StART-mediated GAP-independent Cv-c function we have uncovered in this work is a very interesting finding that should be addressed by future work. However, such biochemical characterisation requires a complex approach to distinguish between the already known StART function regulating the GAP activity shown before (Sotillos Scientific Reports) and the new GAP-independent function we describe in the testes that falls beyond this work.

      The central point of this manuscript is the demonstration that both DLC3/Cv-c are involved in male gonad formation, an important conserved function for both of them that had been overlooked by previous publication. Thus, DLC3 should be considered a new gene to be analysed in the future when studying gonadal dysgenesis. A second important point raised by our work is the demonstration that DLC3/Cv-c can perform RhoGAP independent functions, something that had never been described for these proteins.

      Not withstanding this, in the revised version, we have added a new supplementary figure (1) related to the StART domain-lipid interaction analysed in-silico. The in-silico model shows that the DLC3-StART domain Ω1-loop structure displays the highest frequency of interaction with the membrane. This loop is conserved in the StART domains of several other STARD proteins and seems to modulate access to the ligand binding cavity. Ω-loops play multiple roles in protein function, often related to ligand binding, stability and folding. In this context, mutations in the proximity of the Ω1-loop, like the ones carried by the patients, may have drastic effects on overall protein stability that could affect the interaction between gonadal precursor cells.

      1. Do the cv-c mutants survive to adulthood? If yes, then it would be interesting to know how the adult testis behaves in cv-c mutants. Does it result in sterility?

      Response: Unfortunately, all studied cv-c mutants are embryonic lethal.

      1. Ensheathment is required for proper germline development and defects in ensheathment can affect soma-germline communication and germline development. Germ cell ensheathment affects the proliferation of germ cells and display defective JAK/STAT signaling. It would be interesting to know if the germ cells in cv-c mutant gonad show the proliferation defect and impaired JAK/STAT signaling.

      Response: This is an interesting suggestion. JAK/STAT signalling has a male specific function that could explain why cv-c gonadal defects are male specific. We are going to study how cv-c affects STAT signalling in the male gonad. We are currently preparing stocks combining 10XSTAT::GFP reporter with cv-c mutants and preparing samples for anti-STAT labelling. We will also analyse if embryos lacking STAT activation, activate cv-c expression in the testes.

      1. I was also wondering if the authors have examined the number of germ cells in the mutant gonads.

      Response: Yes, we have counted the number of germ cells in cv-c mutants and, if anything, there are more. We initially considered that an excess of GC proliferation could be the cause of gonad disruption. However, we have discarded this hypothesis as phospho-histone 3 stainings did not show a significant increase of GC divisions. Moreover, when we blocked cell proliferation in cv-c’ mutant gonads using UAS-p21, the testes phenotype was not rescued. We are unsure what could be responsible for the slight increase of germ cells observed.

      1. In addition, I think the quality of the images should be improved.

      Response: We have changed the colours used in the confocal images and amplified the relevant regions in all panels. We thank both referees for this suggestion as these changes have improved the figure contrast.

      Minor comments:

      1. cv-c mRNA in Figure 2 panels (Fig. 2D) should be in italics.

      Response: We have changed it.

      1. There is no scale bar in Figure panels. In addition, there is no scale bar in the zoomed images in Figure 2. Scale bars should be consistently put in the all the Figures, in particular on the first panels of the Figures.

      Response: We have added scale bars to all panels.

      1. In the line 677, the manuscript says "arrowhead". There are no arrowheads but the arrows.

      Response: Corrected

      1. Please be consistent with the labels in Figure panels: Vasa is shown in capital while Eya is not.

      Response: Corrected

      1. Please be consistent with the labeling of the Figure panels: Figure 3A vs Figure 4a.

      Response: Corrected

      1. What does the asterisk signify in Figure 2? There is no mention of asterisk in the Figure 2 legend.

      Response: The meaning of the asterisk was explained in the figure legend.

      1. There is no grey channel (sagittal view) for the panels Figure 3I and J.

      Response: We have already included sagittal views in the figure.

      1. Please be thorough in labeling the genotypes in Figures. For instance, Figure 4c depict the % of normal testis in cv-c delta StART. However, the correct genotype is twi>Cv-c StART. In addition, in Figure 4c graph, cv-c mut should be cv-cGAPmut.
      2. Please be consistent with the depiction of the "START" domain of the protein throughout the manuscript. In figure 4c for instance, it is "START" in the graph while in the figure panel 4i, it is StART.
      3. In Figure 4b, it is written DLC3-GA. Did the authors mean DLC3-S993N?
      4. In line 723, it should be anti-beta catenin.

      Response: As suggested, we have unified figure labelling.

      1. The authors have shown two images to suggest that cv-c mutant gonad depict the germ cell blebbing (Figure 3I and J). I think it would be much better to put up a graph showing the number or percentage of cv-c mutant gonads displaying the germ cell blebbing than putting two images with the same information.

      Response: We have already done the quantification and added the data as a graph in figure (3J).

      1. The previous comment is also true for Figure 6H and I. In both the panels, the authors wish to show discontinuous ECM marked by Perlecan expression in cv-c mutant gonads. I think it would be better to display a score of the number of mutant gonads depicting the discontinuous ECM.

      Response: We are repeating stainings to quantify Perlecan disruption in cv-c mutants and we will display the results as a graph in figure 6.

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      Referee #3

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary:

      This manuscript uses genetics, cell biology and confocal imaging to study the loss-of-function phenotypes of Cv-c, the Drosophila ortholog of DLC3. DLC3 mutation has been recently associated with male gonad dysgenesis in DSD patients. This work showed that Cv-c acts in the somatic gonadal cells to regulate male gonad development. Interestingly, the Cv-c mutant phenotypes result in testicular dysgenesis, marked by defective germ cell ensheathment and blebbing. Using different variants of the Cv-c protein and genetics based analyses, the authors further identified that the gonad development is dependent on StART domain but is independent of the GAP domain. Overall, these results should be of interest to researchers in disorders of sexual development, germ cell biology and developmental biology fields. However, at several places in order to reach the conclusions, more rigorous experiments should be performed (see revision details). In conclusion, this work has the potential but requires statistical quantification to support the central claims.

      Major comments:

      1. This study has shown the expression pattern of cv-c and the consequence of cv-c mutation on different aspects of gonad development. However, one major comment is there is no quantification of the expression levels as well as the scoring of the mutant phenotypes.
      2. In Figure 2, for instance, I recommend that the authors display the quantification of the fluorescence intensity of the cv-c expression under all circumstances (in situ hybridization as well as protein-trap based GFP expression) to better depict the differences among the male vs female gonad.
      3. In Figure 3, the authors show the different gonad developmental defects associated with the cv-c mutation. Specifically, the authors show that the gonad mesoderm cells are displaced with the pigment cells failing to ensheath the germ cells. In addition, the authors also suggest that there is an increased frequency of germ cell blebbing, an indication of migratory activity. However, there is no quantification of these findings. I think the authors should display a quantitative estimation of % of the mutant gonad depicting these phenotypes vs the normal gonad to have a perspective of how penetrant the phenotypes are.
      4. In Figure 4, the authors attempt to rescue the Cv-C mutation linked gonadal defects by overexpressing different Cv-C protein variants. The rescue experiments are not very clear. The graph shows the % of normal testes under different genotypic combinations. It is not very clear what the authors mean by normal (in what context)? Since the mutation results in different defects of gonad development, I think recommend that represent the rescue in terms of these defects. It would be interesting to see for instance, what happens to the blebbing or germ cell ensheathment phenoype upon rescue. How many % of testes show the rescue as compared to cv-c mutants?
      5. Did the authors try cell-specific depletion of cv-c and examined the consequence on gonad development?
      6. Another major concern is the lack of mechanistic insight of cv-c. For example, how does loss of cv-c result in gonadal dysgenesis? The authors suggested that StART domains regulate via lipid binding. The authors could examine if StART domain function is dependent on lipid-mediated interactions.
      7. Do the cv-c mutants survive to adulthood? If yes, then it would be interesting to know how the adult testis behaves in cv-c mutants. Does it result in sterility?
      8. Ensheathment is required for proper germline development and defects in ensheathment can affect soma-germline communication and germline development. Germ cell ensheathment affects the proliferation of germ cells and display defective JAK/STAT signaling. It would be interesting to know if the germ cells in cv-c mutant gonad show the proliferation defect and impaired JAK/STAT signaling.
      9. I was also wondering if the authors have examined the number of germ cells in the mutant gonads.
      10. In addition, I think the quality of the images should be improved.

      Minor comments:

      1. cv-c mRNA in Figure 2 panels (Fig. 2D) should be in italics.
      2. There is no scale bar in Figure panels. In addition, there is no scale bar in the zoomed images in Figure 2. Scale bars should be consistently put in the all the Figures, in particular on the first panels of the Figures.
      3. In the line 677, the manuscript says "arrowhead". There are no arrowheads but the arrows.
      4. Please be consistent with the labels in Figure panels: Vasa is shown in capital while Eya is not.
      5. Please be consistent with the labeling of the Figure panels: Figure 3A vs Figure 4a.
      6. What does the asterisk signify in Figure 2? There is no mention of asterisk in the Figure 2 legend.
      7. There is no grey channel (sagittal view) for the panels Figure 3I and J.
      8. Please be thorough in labeling the genotypes in Figures. For instance, Figure 4c depict the % of normal testis in cv-c delta StART. However, the correct genotype is twi>Cv-c StART. In addition, in Figure 4c graph, cv-c mut should be cv-cGAPmut.
      9. Please be consistent with the depiction of the "START" domain of the protein throughout the manuscript. In figure 4c for instance, it is "START" in the graph while in the figure panel 4i, it is StART.
      10. In Figure 4b, it is written DLC3-GA. Did the authors mean DLC3-S993N?
      11. In line 723, it should be anti-beta catenin.
      12. The authors have shown two images to suggest that cv-c mutant gonad depict the germ cell blebbing (Figure 3I and J). I think it would be much better to put up a graph showing the number or percentage of cv-c mutant gonads displaying the germ cell blebbing than putting two images with the same information.
      13. The previous comment is also true for Figure 6H and I. In both the panels, the authors wish to show discontinuous ECM marked by Perlecan expression in cv-c mutant gonads. I think it would be better to display a score of the number of mutant gonads depicting the discontinuous ECM.

      Significance

      The significance of this paper is the identification of a conserved protein that has a conserved function in regulating spermatogenesis. The Drosophila embryonic testis is an ideal system to study the role of cv-c in gonadogenesis. It also sets the stage for studying the potential roles of cv-c in adult testes.

      The existing published knowledge about somatic ensheathment of germ stem cells is sufficiently covered and cv-c is a new player in this process.

      The audience for this study is developmental biologists and researchers studying disorders of sex development.

      Our expertise is somatic sex identity in adult Drosophila gonads and DSD.

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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      This is an interesting and generally convincing study demonstrating the potential role of DLC3 (STARD8)/Cv-c in testicular development, and in particular its role in early (fetal in human) germ cell development. The genetic manipulations and associated techniques involving Drosophila appear to be state of the art, although I would not class myself as expert enough in such techniques to be able to give a truly informed opinion.

      My only issue with the present study is to how well the present experimental findings in Drosophila translate to humans. As far as I can tell the present studies show that inactivating mutations in Cv-c in Drosophila result in failure of germ cell enclosure by somatic cells into the testis, resulting in sterility. In humans, and in experimental mouse transgenic lines, it has been well established that absence of germ cells does not of itself lead to failure of testis differentiation and onward development, nor does it lead automatically to sex reversal or impairment of masculinization. For the latter to occur, there must be impairment/failure of fetal Leydig cell function such that insufficient androgen is produced to effect genital/bodywide masculinization. Obviously, this will happen if no testis forms as appears to be the case in the new human DLC3 mutant reported in the present manuscript (although detail on this is unfortunately lacking). This appears to be different to the previous published DLC3/STARD8 mutant sisters, in whom the phenotype appears to reflect failure of steroidogenesis. Is the proposal that DLC3/STARD8 plays a role in both testis differentiation and in Leydig cell function (steroidogenesis) or is this due to different DLC3 genes? I think the authors need to address these key issues in their discussion, if only to highlight that there are at present many gaps in our understanding.

      I would also suggest that the authors highlight another potentially more important spin-off from such studies, namely that understanding of the regulation of DLC3/STARD8 genes, and what might perturb their expression/action would appear to present a whole new area for exploration in relation to testicular dysgenesis/masculinization disorders.

      Significance

      This represents a significant advance in our understanding and identifies model systems in which to gain further insight.

      I would also suggest that the authors highlight another potentially more important spin-off from such studies, namely that understanding of the regulation of DLC3/STARD8 genes, and what might perturb their expression/action would appear to present a whole new area for exploration in relation to testicular dysgenesis/masculinization disorders in humans.

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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary:

      The authors have utilised Drosophila to provide evidence that a DLC3 mutation identified in 46,XY patients with male gonadal dysgenesis is likely causative for the phenotype. They demonstrated that mutation of the Drosophila ortholog of DLC3, Cv-c, was associated with defects in embryonic testis development and that the phenotype could be rescued by expression of wildtype human DLC3 but not the patient variant. DLC3/Cv-c are members of the RhoGAP family of proteins but GAP activity was not required for in the testis while mutation of the StART domain disrupted gonad morphogenesis. Mutations in this domain were associated with human gonadal dysgenesis suggesting a conservation of function during gonad development.

      Major comments:

      In general, the data support the conclusions. I cannot comment on the atomistic simulation experiment as it is outside of my expertise. I had some difficulties interpreting Figure 2 as the contrast in the colour panels made it difficult to assess the different staining patterns. I would recommend changing the blue to cyan for easier visibility. While I agree that there are some differences between Fig 2F and Fig 2G it is not simple for the non-expert to distinguish the gonadal mesoderm from the somatic mesoderm. I think the enlarged panels could do with also showing the overlap in staining, or at least a tracing of the different cell populations so that the gonadal mesoderm can be clearly defined. Please also add some scale bars to the figure.<br /> Figure 3 demonstrates clear differences in gonad morphology between male and female mutants but the contrast in the colour panels A-G could also be improved. Panels H-J are very clear.<br /> The rescue experiment in Figure 4 is clearly presented but could the DLC3 mutants in the graph (panel b) please be named similarly to the schematic proteins shown in panel a.<br /> I found the difference between the RhoGAP domain mutants and the StART domain mutants of Cv-c to be clearly defined, and correlate with DLC3 function. This is a very interesting result that indicates multiple molecular functions for the Cv-c /DLC family.<br /> The methods are well described, statistics adequate and the data well described.

      Minor Comments:

      My only suggestion for the text is to provide a more through description of the StART domain in the introduction.

      Referees cross-commenting

      Quantification of dispersed low level punctate expression levels will be very difficult to achieve and I do not believe will alter the conclusions. I agree that quantification of the percentage of gonads that display the illustrated phenotypes would be beneficial. The manuscript nicely describes a phenotype that has been defined to be due to mutation of the StART domain. Defining the mechanism of how the StART domain regulates protein function would take the study to a new level but may not be necessary for publication of the findings.

      Significance

      The significance of this work is two-fold.

      1. A demonstration that Cv-c and DLC3 have similar functions in regulation of gonad morphogenesis, and that the patient mutations almost certainly correlate with the observed phenotypes.
      2. An intriguing demonstration that this family of proteins is not simply functioning as RhoGAPs, and that there is a specific roles for the StART domain in male gonad development.

      DLC3 has already been shown to rescue Malpighian tubule defects associated with Cv-c mutants so the functional equivalence of these proteins has already been established. The novelty of the present study relates to a demonstration that the StART domain is specifically required for male gonad morphogenesis, and the utility of experiments in Drosophila to assist in associating a human mutation with a clinical phenotype.

      This work should find a willing audience from clinical geneticists as an example of how model organism genetics can assist genetic diagnoses. It will also be of great interest to the field of reproductive biologists who wish to understand how the sex determination pathways are resolved by differential tissue development. The obvious next steps are to determine why mutations in Cv-c only affect male gonads and not females, and what is the specific role of the StART domain in this process.<br /> My field of study has focussed on adult gonad development and regeneration, and I found the manuscript presented in a style that was simple to follow with my suggestion that contrast of some of the colour panels could be improved.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      The rapid syncytial nuclear cycles that occur during the first ~2.5 hours of Drosophila embryogenesis and give rise to the blastoderm are supported by large amounts of maternally deposited histone proteins which are stored in the egg cytoplasm for deposition into replicating DNA during each round of S phase. Although the H2A/H2B storage chaperone Jabba was identified by Michael Welte's lab several years ago, maternal H3/H4 storage chaperones have not been identified. Tirgar et al provide evidence that the Drosophila NASP protein provides histone H3 and H4 storage function during these earliest stages of Drosophila embryogenesis. The data include genetic analyses that NASP function is required maternally, but not zygotically, and molecular analyses that NASP binds H3 and that H3 and H4 levels are reduced in the embryo and late-stage oocytes in the absence of NASP. These data are convincing and support the conclusion that NASP is a maternally acting H3/H4 storage chaperone needed in the early embryo.

      Two additional lines of investigation would strengthen this conclusion and perhaps increase the impact and appeal of the manuscript.

      The first is a microscopic analysis of the nuclear division cycles in eggs derived from NASP mutant mothers. The authors report DAPI staining and assessment of nuclear cycles, but do not show these data. In fact, the two embryos shown in Figure 4B do not look like DAPI stained embryos-there are no nuclei apparent in the images. Loss of maternal histone causes defects in chromosome morphology that result in characteristic defects such as lagging chromosomes and the failure of sister chromatid segregation leading to fused daughter nuclei (see PMID: 11157774 for an example). These defects should not be difficult to detect via DNA staining or even using fluorescently labeled H2 type histones. Characterizing such defects would lend support to the hypothesis and I think is important for this paper.

      We thank the reviewer for their constructive review and feedback. We have switched to Propidium Iodide (PI) staining to increase the signal-to-noise for DNA staining in early embryos. Given the improved signal we see with PI over DAPI, we will be able to provide both improved images of nuclear staining and assay for defects in chromosome morphology as suggested. We will include this data in the revised version of the manuscript. Second, determining the location of NASP in the early embryo might provide further insight into the mechanism of storage. i.e. is NASP located in the cytoplasm rather than the nucleus, perhaps in association with lipid droplets like Jabba? Do the antibodies the authors developed work in IF experiments to ask this question? At the moment what is shown is that NASP is present in 0-2 hour embryos via western blot analysis, supporting the conclusion that it functions in the early embryo as a storage chaperone. This analysis would be nice to have but is not essential in my view.

      We have tried to use our antibody to monitor the localization of NASP in the early embryo. Unfortunately, the staining has yet to work. We will continue to alter fixation and permeabilization conditions in the early embryo with the goal of including this data in the revised manuscript. We have, however, been able to monitor NASP localization in Drosophila S2 cultured cells with our antibody. If we are unable to get the antibody staining to work in embryos, we will include the NASP localization data in S2 cells in combination with EdU labeling to mark cells in S phase.

      Small points: Is NASP really a maternal effect "lethal"? Some of the eggs do hatch, and so some develop to stages where maternal histones are no longer necessary and zygotic production takes over (i.e. cycle 15). Perhaps consider the language used here.

      We see the reviewers point with respect to the term ‘lethal’. We do see a very small fraction of progeny laid by NASPmutant mothers make it to adulthood, although they die shortly after hatching. We’ve removed the term ‘lethal’ and refer to NASP solely as a maternal effect gene. On this point, do NASP mutant females lay the same number of eggs as wild type? i.e. is there a requirement for oogenesis/egg production (other than depositing H3/H4 into the egg), or just for the early zygotic cycles?

      We have noticed that NASP mutant mothers have lower fecundity. We have included this data in the revised manuscript as Supplemental Figure 2A.

      The first paragraph of the results is redundant with much of the introduction, which I think could do a better job at describing in more detail the syncytial cycles and the special needs they have for histone storage and chaperone function versus the post-blastoderm embryonic cycles and the rest of development. i.e. make a better distinction between the first two hours of embryogenesis versus the rest of embryogenesis, and the when the switch from maternal to zygotic control of development and histone production occurs (cycle 15 at 3-4 hours AED).

      We appreciate the reviewer for this suggestion. The manuscript has been edited to be less redundant and include details of embryogenesis as suggested. CROSS-CONSULTATION COMMENTS Seems like all reviewers are in general agreement, particularly about providing additional data regarding chromosome/nuclear behavior in the NASP mutants and NASP localization in the early embryo to increase impact of the study. While rescue of the NASP mutant phenotype with a transgene would be nice, as suggested by referee #2, I don't think it's essential given the genetic approaches employed.

      Reviewer #1 (Significance (Required)):

      see above

      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      Tirgar et al. report on a functional characterization of the Drosophila homolog of the histone H3/H4 chaperone NASP. They generated a loss of function allele of NASP by CRISPR/Cas9, which induces a partial maternal effect embryo lethal phenotype. Using quantitative mass spectrometry, they demonstrate that NASP stabilizes reservoirs of H3 and H4 in the early embryo. The manuscript is very clear and confirms the functional importance of maternal NASP for the early embryo. Genetic analyses are well conducted (but see my comments below) and the impact of NASP maternal mutant on H3 and H4 stockpiles is convincingly established by both quantitative mass spectrometry and Western-blotting.

      Major comments:

      • Although the authors used two independent deficiencies of the NASP genetic region to characterize their NASP CRISPR alleles, it is relatively standard in this type of functional analyses to perform rescue experiments using a transgene expressing the WT protein.

      We thank the reviewer for this suggestion. As discussed in the cross consultation, we agree that the use of the two different deficiency lines and the NASP1 CRISPR control are clear lines of evidence that the phenotypical data are due to lack of NASP.

      • In WB analyses, NASP appears systematically shorter in the NASP[1]/Df genotype compared to WT. Can the authors comment on this?

      While we reproducibly see this change in migration, we can only guess as to why this may be. One possible reason is that the NASP1 mutant protein could be missing a post-translational modification. Proteomic data from Krauchunas et al. (Dev Biol. 2012; PMC3441184) shows that NASP has the potential to be regulated by phosphorylation. Therefore, the NASP1 mutant protein could be missing a phosphorylation. Intriguingly, the 6bp insertion is next to a Thr residue that could affect its ability to be phosphorylated (if it is phosphorylated at all). Since we can only offer speculation, we do not feel comfortable adding this to the manuscript.

      • The authors do not mention the centromeric histone H3 variant Cid in their analyses. Do they have evidence that it is not affected by loss of maternal NASP?

      We thank the reviewer for raising this great point. Our mass spec data reveals that Cid levels stay the same in the absence of NASP in both embryos and stage 14 egg chambers. We have edited Figures 3D and 3E to include Cid. Unfortunately, we did not identify any Cid-specific peptides in our IP-mass spec data.

      • The authors could have chosen to explore in more details the phenotypic defects of embryos derived from NASP mutant mothers. Instead, a single abnormal embryo is shown with no cytological details. This is a bit problematic since an earlier study (Zhang et al 2018, cited in the manuscript) actually provided more phenotypic details of embryos from NASP KD mothers.

      This issue was also raised by Reviewer 1. We have switched to Propidium Iodide (PI) staining to increase the signal-to-noise for DNA staining in early embryos. Given the improved signal we see with PI over DAPI, we will be able to provide both improved images of nuclear staining and assay for defects in chromosome morphology as suggested. We will include this data in the revised version of the manuscript. - Similarly, the authors could have used their anti-NASP antibody to analyze the distribution of NASP during cleavage divisions. Does it behave like ASF1, for instance, which enters S phase nuclei at each cycle or does it remain in the cytoplasm? These are relatively simple experiments/analyses that could increase the significance of the study.

      This point was also raised by Reviewer 1. We have tried to use our antibody to monitor the localization of NASP in the early embryo. Unfortunately, the staining has yet to work. We will continue to alter fixation and permeabilization conditions in the early embryo with the goal of including this data in the revised manuscript. We have, however, been able to monitor NASP localization in Drosophila S2 cultured cells with our antibody. If we are unable to get the antibody staining to work in embryos, we will include the NASP localization data in S2 cells in combination with EdU labeling to mark cells in S phase.

      Minor comments:

      • line 60: I suggest to introduce Drosophila in the next sentence, where it seems more appropriate (not all embryos develop "extremely rapidly").

      We have edited the second sentence to state “the early Drosophila embryo”.

      • line 68: the 50% estimation of free histones does not really make sense without defining the embryonic stage.

      We have edited the manuscript to state the specific cell cycle in which there has been 50% free histones measured. - line 89: Are the authors specifically referring to Drosophila NASP?

      Yes, we have edited the text to include Drosophila in this instance. - lines 99-106: I found this paragraph redundant with the introduction.

      We appreciate this suggestion. It was also pointed out by Reviewer 1. We have made changes to the manuscript to address the redundancy.

      • line 142: H3-H4

      Thank you for noticing this. We have edited the text to include 4.

      • line190-191: It seems to me that data of Figure S2C are already included in Fig. 2E.

      The data in FigureS2C was performed with virgin females compared to the data in Figure 2E that was generated with non-virgin mothers. This was important to control the genotype of the embryos.

      • line 232: it is surprising that the Zhang et al paper (reporting maternal KD of NASP) is only mentioned here. As a reader, I would certainly prefer to have it presented right from the introduction.

      We have edited the manuscript to include this reference in the introduction.

      • Figure 4B needs a scale bar.

      Figure 4B will be replaced with better images of the embryo stained with PI. It will also include images of chromosome morphology/segregation. We will be sure to include scale bars.

      • line 302: Mentioning the identity and function of known H3/H4 histone chaperones acting in the early embryo (ASF1, HIRA, CAF-1, ...) could provide perspective to the present study.

      Thank you for this suggestion. We have edited the manuscript to include functions of other histone chaperones in the early embryo to provide context.

      • line 304: in contrast to this statement, I found quite surprising and interesting that NASP is not absolutely essential for embryo development considering its role. This should be discussed.

      In the absence of Jabba alone, upregulation of translation can compensate for the destabilization of H2A, H2B, and H2Av. It is only when translation is inhibited in embryos laid by Jabba mutant mothers that embryos die (Li.Z, et al. Curr Biol 2013). Therefore, it is possible that translation can partially compensate for the degradation of H3 and H4 in the absence of NASP. This may be why a fraction of embryos laid by NASP mutant mothers are able to hatch and why we still detect some H3 in embryos laid by NASP mutant mothers. We have edited the manuscript to discuss this more in depth.

      CROSS-CONSULTATION COMMENTS I fully agree with the other reports. The NASP rescue experiment is just a suggestion but is not essential.

      Reviewer #2 (Significance (Required)):

      This work clarifies the identity and function of Drosophila NASP and clearly demonstrates that NASP is important for the stabilization of maternal stockpiles of H3 and H4 during early embryo development. The conservation of NASP function as a histone H3/H4 chaperone in Drosophila is not really a surprise but the merit of this study is to establish this assumption as a fact. It also establishes useful tools (mutant lines and antibody) for the fly community interested in this topic. The study however does not provide new insights about the dynamic distribution of NASP and the cytological consequences of its maternal depletion on the amplification of cleavage nuclei.

      Reviewer #3 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      Summary: Rapid cell cycles in early embryogenesis is driven from maternally supplied stockpiles of RNA and protein, including histones H3 and H4. This study uses sequence homology searches, biochemical approaches (immunoprecipitation and mass spectrometry) and genetics to identify NASP (CG8223) as the H3-H4 chaperone in Drosophila. Using CRISPR technology, the authors generate a NASP mutant fly line and show using genetic crosses that NASP is a maternal lethal gene. Furthermore the study shows that NASP stabilises H3-H4 during oogenesis and embryogenesis and is required for early embryogenesis.

      Major comments: The key conclusions of this study are very convincing. For example, the authors use multiple approaches to show H3-H4 specific interactions with NASP and that H3-H4 protein levels are reduced in mutants (Western analyses, quantitative MS). Analysis is carried out on two individual NASP mutant lines (one deletion that produces no protein, one insertion that still produces some protein acting as a control). All experiments are well controlled, executed and presented. Genetic crossing schemes are well presented and statistical analysis of progeny is clear.

      • We thank the reviewer for their positive feedback of our manuscript. Minor comments: In Figure 1B - Authors could indicate amino acids shown or are they full length proteins?

      We have edited the methods to include specific amino residues that are included for each structure.

      In Figure 2B - Authors could (semi) quantify reduction in NASP1 mutant to show this is a gene dose effect?

      We have now included the quantification of the Western blot in Figure 2B.

      CROSS-CONSULTATION COMMENTS I agree with the other reports. Although I did not indicate it in my original report, I agree that more in depth analysis of nuclear or chromosomal defects in NASP mutant embryos would enhance the study.

      Thank you for this suggestion. We are repeating the DNA staining in embryos and will include this new data in the revised version of the manuscript.

      Reviewer #3 (Significance (Required)):

      Excess soluble histones can be toxic and must be bound to chaperones. Until this study the chaperone responsible for H3-H4 stabilisation in rapidly cycling cells in Drosophila embryos was not known. Moreover, the NASP homolog had not yet been identified in Drosophila nor had its function been characterised. The findings are of interest to Drosophila researchers, the field of chromatin assembly, as well as those interested in early embryogenesis in animals.

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      Referee #3

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary:

      Rapid cell cycles in early embryogenesis is driven from maternally supplied stockpiles of RNA and protein, including histones H3 and H4. This study uses sequence homology searches, biochemical approaches (immunoprecipitation and mass spectrometry) and genetics to identify NASP (CG8223) as the H3-H4 chaperone in Drosophila. Using CRISPR technology, the authors generate a NASP mutant fly line and show using genetic crosses that NASP is a maternal lethal gene. Furthermore the study shows that NASP stabilises H3-H4 during oogenesis and embryogenesis and is required for early embryogenesis.

      Major comments:

      The key conclusions of this study are very convincing. For example, the authors use multiple approaches to show H3-H4 specific interactions with NASP and that H3-H4 protein levels are reduced in mutants (Western analyses, quantitative MS). Analysis is carried out on two individual NASP mutant lines (one deletion that produces no protein, one insertion that still produces some protein acting as a control). All experiments are well controlled, executed and presented. Genetic crossing schemes are well presented and statistical analysis of progeny is clear.

      Minor comments:

      In Figure 1B - Authors could indicate amino acids shown or are they full length proteins?

      In Figure 2B - Authors could (semi) quantify reduction in NASP1 mutant to show this is a gene dose effect?

      Referees cross-commenting

      I agree with the other reports. Although I did not indicate it in my original report, I agree that more in depth analysis of nuclear or chromosomal defects in NASP mutant embryos would enhance the study.

      Significance

      Excess soluble histones can be toxic and must be bound to chaperones. Until this study the chaperone responsible for H3-H4 stabilisation in rapidly cycling cells in Drosophila embryos was not known. Moreover, the NASP homolog had not yet been identified in Drosophila nor had its function been characterised. The findings are of interest to Drosophila researchers, the field of chromatin assembly, as well as those interested in early embryogenesis in animals.

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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Tirgar et al. report on a functional characterization of the Drosophila homolog of the histone H3/H4 chaperone NASP. They generated a loss of function allele of NASP by CRISPR/Cas9, which induces a partial maternal effect embryo lethal phenotype. Using quantitative mass spectrometry, they demonstrate that NASP stabilizes reservoirs of H3 and H4 in the early embryo. The manuscript is very clear and confirms the functional importance of maternal NASP for the early embryo. Genetic analyses are well conducted (but see my comments below) and the impact of NASP maternal mutant on H3 and H4 stockpiles is convincingly established by both quantitative mass spectrometry and Western-blotting.

      Major comments:

      • Although the authors used two independent deficiencies of the NASP genetic region to characterize their NASP CRISPR alleles, it is relatively standard in this type of functional analyses to perform rescue experiments using a transgene expressing the WT protein.
      • In WB analyses, NASP appears systematically shorter in the NASP[1]/Df genotype compared to WT. Can the authors comment on this?
      • The authors do not mention the centromeric histone H3 variant Cid in their analyses. Do they have evidence that it is not affected by loss of maternal NASP?
      • The authors could have chosen to explore in more details the phenotypic defects of embryos derived from NASP mutant mothers. Instead, a single abnormal embryo is shown with no cytological details. This is a bit problematic since an earlier study (Zhang et al 2018, cited in the manuscript) actually provided more phenotypic details of embryos from NASP KD mothers.
      • Similarly, the authors could have used their anti-NASP antibody to analyze the distribution of NASP during cleavage divisions. Does it behave like ASF1, for instance, which enters S phase nuclei at each cycle or does it remain in the cytoplasm? These are relatively simple experiments/analyses that could increase the significance of the study.

      Minor comments:

      • line 60: I suggest to introduce Drosophila in the next sentence, where it seems more appropriate (not all embryos develop "extremely rapidly").
      • line 68: the 50% estimation of free histones does not really make sense without defining the embryonic stage.
      • line 89: Are the authors specifically referring to Drosophila NASP?
      • lines 99-106: I found this paragraph redundant with the introduction.
      • line 142: H3-H4
      • line190-191: It seems to me that data of Figure S2C are already included in Fig. 2E.
      • line 232: it is surprising that the Zhang et al paper (reporting maternal KD of NASP) is only mentioned here. As a reader, I would certainly prefer to have it presented right from the introduction.
      • Figure 4B needs a scale bar.
      • line 302: Mentioning the identity and function of known H3/H4 histone chaperones acting in the early embryo (ASF1, HIRA, CAF-1, ...) could provide perspective to the present study.
      • line 304: in contrast to this statement, I found quite surprising and interesting that NASP is not absolutely essential for embryo development considering its role. This should be discussed.

      Referees cross-commenting

      I fully agree with the other reports.

      The NASP rescue experiment is just a suggestion but is not essential.

      Significance

      This work clarifies the identity and function of Drosophila NASP and clearly demonstrates that NASP is important for the stabilization of maternal stockpiles of H3 and H4 during early embryo development. The conservation of NASP function as a histone H3/H4 chaperone in Drosophila is not really a surprise but the merit of this study is to establish this assumption as a fact. It also establishes useful tools (mutant lines and antibody) for the fly community interested in this topic. The study however does not provide new insights about the dynamic distribution of NASP and the cytological consequences of its maternal depletion on the amplification of cleavage nuclei.

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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      The rapid syncytial nuclear cycles that occur during the first ~2.5 hours of Drosophila embryogenesis and give rise to the blastoderm are supported by large amounts of maternally deposited histone proteins which are stored in the egg cytoplasm for deposition into replicating DNA during each round of S phase. Although the H2A/H2B storage chaperone Jabba was identified by Michael Welte's lab several years ago, maternal H3/H4 storage chaperones have not been identified. Tirgar et al provide evidence that the Drosophila NASP protein provides histone H3 and H4 storage function during these earliest stages of Drosophila embryogenesis. The data include genetic analyses that NASP function is required maternally, but not zygotically, and molecular analyses that NASP binds H3 and that H3 and H4 levels are reduced in the embryo and late-stage oocytes in the absence of NASP. These data are convincing and support the conclusion that NASP is a maternally acting H3/H4 storage chaperone needed in the early embryo.

      Two additional lines of investigation would strengthen this conclusion and perhaps increase the impact and appeal of the manuscript.

      The first is a microscopic analysis of the nuclear division cycles in eggs derived from NASP mutant mothers. The authors report DAPI staining and assessment of nuclear cycles, but do not show these data. In fact, the two embryos shown in Figure 4B do not look like DAPI stained embryos-there are no nuclei apparent in the images. Loss of maternal histone causes defects in chromosome morphology that result in characteristic defects such as lagging chromosomes and the failure of sister chromatid segregation leading to fused daughter nuclei (see PMID: 11157774 for an example). These defects should not be difficult to detect via DNA staining or even using fluorescently labeled H2 type histones. Characterizing such defects would lend support to the hypothesis and I think is important for this paper.

      Second, determining the location of NASP in the early embryo might provide further insight into the mechanism of storage. i.e. is NASP located in the cytoplasm rather than the nucleus, perhaps in association with lipid droplets like Jabba? Do the antibodies the authors developed work in IF experiments to ask this question? At the moment what is shown is that NASP is present in 0-2 hour embryos via western blot analysis, supporting the conclusion that it functions in the early embryo as a storage chaperone. This analysis would be nice to have but is not essential in my view.

      Small points:

      Is NASP really a maternal effect "lethal"? Some of the eggs do hatch, and so some develop to stages where maternal histones are no longer necessary and zygotic production takes over (i.e. cycle 15). Perhaps consider the language used here. On this point, do NASP mutant females lay the same number of eggs as wild type? i.e. is there a requirement for oogenesis/egg production (other than depositing H3/H4 into the egg), or just for the early zygotic cycles?

      The first paragraph of the results is redundant with much of the introduction, which I think could do a better job at describing in more detail the syncytial cycles and the special needs they have for histone storage and chaperone function versus the post-blastoderm embryonic cycles and the rest of development. i.e. make a better distinction between the first two hours of embryogenesis versus the rest of embryogenesis, and the when the switch from maternal to zygotic control of development and histone production occurs (cycle 15 at 3-4 hours AED).

      Referees cross-commenting

      Seems like all reviewers are in general agreement, particularly about providing additional data regarding chromosome/nuclear behavior in the NASP mutants and NASP localization in the early embryo to increase impact of the study. While rescue of the NASP mutant phenotype with a transgene would be nice, as suggested by referee #2, I don't think it's essential given the genetic approaches employed.

      Significance

      see above

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      Reply to the reviewers

      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      An exciting development in our knowledge about how the Arp2/3 complex controls the assembly of actin networks has come from the discovery that in addition to forming branched networks, Arp2/3 can nucleate linear filaments when it is activated by WISH/DIP/SPIN90. However, despite some excellent work largely done by the Nolen lab in yeast, many questions remain about how Arp2/3-mediated assembly of branched vs. linear actin filament. This is especially true in the complex environment of cells, were synergy and competition of different actin networks is used to control biological processes. Knowing the biochemical and physical properties of these different Arp2/3 assemblies will be key to figuring out how they work in cells. Here Cao et al. use an elegant microfluidics based single filament assay system to perform a comparative analysis of the stability of linear and branched Arp2/3 networks. They find interesting differences in how they respond to stabilizing and destabilizing factors. The most striking differences happens when force or aging is applied- both cause debranching of branched networks but have little effect on Spin90-Arp2/3 nucleated filaments.

      We thank the reviewer for their positive comments.

      Major comments:

      As a comparative study on the stability of branched vs. linear Arp2/3 nucleated filaments, this manuscript is fairly complete. The key conclusions are well supported by rigorous experiments which can be reproduced by others based on the information provided. However, I am not seeing explicit information on performing biological replicates. This should be included in the manuscript. The use of statistics is largely fine; however I question the use of one statistical test on one figure (see minor comments below).

      The revised manuscript is now explicit about biological replicates. We now specify the biological repeats of all our experiments in the figure legends, and we now show the results from new repeats in Fig 4 and Supp Fig S2 (please see also our response to the minor comments below, for more details).

      I would not ask for additional experiments at this time. However, there is an analysis that would be important for interpreting the authors' claims- branch/filament length at the time of dissociation or destabilization of Arp2/3. This would help address if there was a physical tipping point for each type of structure that could explain potential differences they see. The authors should already have this data and the time to complete it would be negligible in delaying publication.

      If we understand correctly, the “physical tipping point” mentioned by the reviewer would be a threshold force, where the Arp2/3-filament interface would become unstable. This is an interesting idea. Indeed, the applied force scales with the length of the filament (or branch), as well as with the flow velocity. In most of our experiments, however, the force applied to SPIN90-Arp2/3 and to branch junctions was kept constant and below 0.2 pN. This was done by exposing the filaments (or branches) to G-actin at the critical concentration, in order to minimize variations of their lengths. Therefore, by design, dissociation events in these experiments take place at the same length, ruling out the existence of a “tipping point”.

      Our data provide another test of the reviewer’s hypothesis, thanks to the experiments where we specifically address the question of the impact of force (Fig 5 and Supp Fig S6), by varying length and flow rate. We found that the stability of SPIN90-Arp2/3 linear filaments was unaffected by force, and that debranching was steadily accelerated by force. In both cases, it thus appears that there is no detectable threshold.

      One additional major comment is that the manuscript's title and abstract hint that this paper explores the differences in nucleation of branched vs. linear filaments by Arp2/3. However, the only figure that deals explicitly with nucleation in the paper is Figure 1, which is really just a confirmation that the mammalian proteins used in this study perform similarly to their yeast homologues (Balzer et al, Current Biology 2019). The authors might think about rewording the title/abstract to better reflect that paper really explores the differences in the stability of the two networks

      This is a fair point. We have now modified the title into “Regulation of branched versus linear Arp2/3-generated actin filaments”.

      Minor comments:

      1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women are red/green colorblind. Please change the coloring of the schematics and images so that they can be easily seen by all people. This is especially true of the schematics, which are important for understanding exactly what each assay is measuring.

      We thank the reviewer for pointing this out. We have now made the schematics and images in Figs 1A, 2A, 2D and 4D colorblind-friendly.

      The Introduction is a bit choppy and unfocused. It was difficult to deduce exactly where the paper was going from it. Please consider re-writing it for better clarity. The Discussion on the other hand was fantastic. Great job on interpreting your results in a larger context.

      We have re-written large parts of the Introduction to make it clearer. We are glad the reviewer liked the Discussion, where we have nonetheless made some small changes in response to comments from the other reviewers.

      Many figures- while the use of different lightness values of the same color is appreciated in conveying different concentrations of reagents used, there were several instances where it was very hard to read the one on the very bottom (ex. 2B, E; 3A; 5C, G).

      We have now changed the colors in these figures, to make them clearer.

      Figure 1- since this is a confirmation of previous results performed using the same proteins from other species, the title should reflect that (ex. VCA domains accelerate the nucleation of filaments by mammalian SPIN90-Arp2/3). Also, to me this figure is supplementary to the main message of the paper. The authors might think of moving it to Supplementary Information.

      We have modified the title of Figure 1, now specifying “mammalian”, following the reviewer’s suggestion. However, we prefer to keep this figure as a main figure, rather than move it to Supplementary as proposed. Indeed, this figure does more than simply confirm previous results with mammalian proteins, since it compares different VCAs, which is new. These results are important because they are put in perspective with our results on the acceleration of linear filament detachment by different VCAs, later in the manuscript.

      Figure 1- If the goal was to verify that G-actin recruitment by VCA was important for Spin90-Arp 2/3 nucleation by performing a competition experiment with profilin, why was the concentration of G-actin AND profilin increased between the experiments in 1B vs. 1C. It makes it hard to directly compare the results.

      We now provide new data in Fig 1C, which can be directly compared to Fig 1B (only the profilin concentration was increased). It clearly shows that the effect of VCA disappears when the profilin concentration is increased.

      Figure 4B-F- Here, it would be nice to see the distribution of all the individual results, which are hidden by the bar graph. Additionally, the Chi-square test is not the appropriate test for evaluating statistical significance between multiple groups. ANOVA followed by an appropriate post hoc test should be used here.

      We now show the individual results in the bar graphs of figure 4. In this situation, we agree that the statistical significance should not be evaluated by a Chi-square test. We now indicate the p-values obtained from a paired t-test, which seems appropriate since we are comparing averages in pairs.

      Figure 4G- Please quantify and show reproducibility.

      We now show quantified repeats (shown in Fig 4, new panels H and I).

      Figure 5- the piconewton forces used for these experiments is in line with measured forces that are applied to actin in cells (ex. Mehida et al, Nature Cell Biology 2021; Jiang et al, Nature 2003). The text would benefit if this was explicitly stated.

      We now state this explicitly, when presenting these results.

      Reviewer #1 (Significance (Required)):

      The real significance of this work is in characterizing the differential stabilities of linear vs. branched Arp2/3 filaments in response to actin-binding proteins, mechanical stress, and aging. While both types of filaments respond similarly to actin-binding proteins, with nuanced differences, the most striking results came from applied force and aging experiments, with Spin90-Arp2/3 filaments being much more resistant to both. This has some very interesting implications for how these two types of assemblies might synergize in cells. Additionally, the results also have some exciting implications for the pointed-end regulation of actin filaments, which is still poorly understood in complex systems. Since the manuscript is A) more of a survey study on the factors that influence filament stability that does not go particularly deep into any particular mechanism of regulation and B) has no direct applicability to how the physical properties of branched and linear Arp2/3 nucleated actin filaments influence actin network activity in cells, the audience will likely by limited to actin enthusiasts. However, the work is still important in both what it reveals and implies.

      We thank the reviewer for pointing out the novelty and the importance of our work. We agree that the significance of our paper lies in the characterization of the differential stabilities of linear vs. branched Arp2/3 filaments, in response to different physiological factors. One of the strengths of our approach is that we do not focus on one regulatory mechanism in particular. Rather, we reveal fundamental differences between the Arp2/3-generated filaments and how they can be regulated. Understanding these basic mechanisms is a prerequisite to understand the regulation of entire cytoskeletal networks.

      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      The quantitative analysis can be improved. It appears that most of the data results from single experiments, with rate values and errors resulting from fitting of single experiments without repetitions. In Fig. 1C legend (p.5) the authors state "These experiments were repeated three times, with similar results", but the data is not used in the analysis and other experiments do not mention this point. This is particularly important for comparisons among different VCAs that are rather similar in nature. In Fig. 1B. N-WASP is more efficient in nucleating SPIN90-Arp2/3 complex-linear filaments followed by WASP and then WASH. In Fig. 2 B,C, N-WASP is the most effective in dissociating SPIN90-Arp2/3 complex linear filaments followed by WASH and then WASP. But in Fig. 2 E,F, WASH is by far the most effective in dissociating branches followed by N-WASP and then WASP. Therefore, the conclusion in the Discussion (p.12) "While these regulatory proteins similarly affect branched and linear Arp2/3-generated filaments, they do so with clear quantitative differences" is not supported by quantification. To remedy this problem the authors should include at least 3 repeats of each experiment in data analysis. Also, they could include an analysis of sequence differences among VCAs and discuss how these may correlate with the observed differences. For instance, one WH2 in WASP vs. two in N-WASP.

      Indeed, we argue that the two forms of activated Arp2/3 differ in their sensitivity to different VCA motifs, based on how these VCA motifs rank in their ability to destabilize branched and linear filaments (the VCA motifs also rank differently in their activation and co-activation of Arp2/3 to nucleate branches and linear filaments, but this result does not contribute to our discussion of how proteins interact with the activated Arp2/3). Following the reviewer’s suggestion, we now show repeats of these experiments (new Supp Fig S2), clearly showing that N-WASP is the most effective in dissociating linear filaments while the differences are milder for dissociating branches, with WASH being at least as effective as NWASP. We now also discuss how this observation could relate to differences in sequence between VCAs (Discussion section and new Supp Fig S9).

      Also, please note that, following a suggestion from Reviewer 3, we have now performed experiments with the CA-domains of NWASP (new Supp Fig S4C and S4D), which show that the V-domain plays an important role in debranching but plays no role in destabilizing SPIN90-Arp2/3 at filament pointed ends. These new results reinforce our statement that VCA affects branched and linear Arp2/3-generated filaments differently.

      Reviewer #2 (Significance (Required)):

      Arp2/3 complex is a 7-protein complex implicated in actin filament nucleation and branching. Arp2/3 complex-nucleated branched networks are found at several locations in cells and are responsible for processes such as cell motility.

      Cao et al. compare the effect of several proteins on the filament nucleation activity of Arp2/3 complex, and the stabilization or destabilization of actin filament branches as well as linear actin filaments nucleated by SPIN90-Arp2/3 complex. The proteins tested include the VCA regions of three NPFs (N-WASP, WASP, and WASH) that activate Arp2/3 complex, GMF (a debranching protein) and cortactin (a branch stabilizing protein). For the most part, the study uses a single method, microfluidics-TIRF microscopy.

      The main findings are:

      1. VCA domains enhance nucleation of linear filaments by SPIN90-Arp2/3 complex in the presence of actin monomers.
      2. However, VCA domains can also destabilize existing SPIN90-Arp2/3 complex linear filaments and branches, and this effect depends on the presence of of V-domain (WH2 domain that binds actin monomers).
      3. The debranching factor GMF also destabilizes SPIN90-Arp2/3 complex linear filaments. Both GMF and VCA generate free pointed ends by dissociating Arp2/3 complex from pointed ends and SPIN90.
      4. SPIN90-Arp2/3 complex linear filaments are less susceptible to force and aging than filament branches.
      5. Cortactin stabilizes SPIN90-Arp2/3 complex linear filaments to higher degree than it does branches. These are novel and very interesting new observations of significant interest to the actin cytoskeleton field. Therefore, I recommend publication of this paper in EMBO J.

      We thank the reviewer for their positive evaluation of our work.

      I have one recommendation and one suggestion for improvement:

      Major:

      1. The quantitative analysis can be improved. It appears that most of the data results from single experiments, with rate values and errors resulting from fitting of single experiments without repetitions. In Fig. 1C legend (p.5) the authors state "These experiments were repeated three times, with similar results", but the data is not used in the analysis and other experiments do not mention this point. This is particularly important for comparisons among different VCAs that are rather similar in nature. In Fig. 1B. N-WASP is more efficient in nucleating SPIN90-Arp2/3 complex-linear filaments followed by WASP and then WASH. In Fig. 2 B,C, N-WASP is the most effective in dissociating SPIN90-Arp2/3 complex linear filaments followed by WASH and then WASP. But in Fig. 2 E,F, WASH is by far the most effective in dissociating branches followed by N-WASP and then WASP. Therefore, the conclusion in the Discussion (p.12) "While these regulatory proteins similarly affect branched and linear Arp2/3-generated filaments, they do so with clear quantitative differences" is not supported by quantification. To remedy this problem the authors should include at least 3 repeats of each experiment in data analysis. Also, they could include an analysis of sequence differences among VCAs and discuss how these may correlate with the observed differences. For instance, one WH2 in WASP vs. two in N-WASP.

      This comment is identical to the reviewer’s first paragraph. We copy our answer here again, for convenience:

      Indeed, we argue that the two forms of activated Arp2/3 differ in their sensitivity to different VCA motifs, based on how these VCA motifs rank in their ability to destabilize branched and linear filaments (the VCA motifs also rank differently in their activation and co-activation of Arp2/3 to nucleate branches and linear filaments, but this result does not contribute to our discussion of how proteins interact with the activated Arp2/3). Following the reviewer’s suggestion, we now show repeats of these experiments (new Supp Fig S2), clearly showing that N-WASP is the most effective in dissociating linear filaments while the differences are milder for dissociating branches, with WASH being at least as effective as NWASP. We now also discuss how this observation could relate to differences in sequence between VCAs (Discussion section and new Supp Fig S9).

      Also, please note that, following a suggestion from Reviewer 3, we have now performed experiments with the CA-domains of NWASP (new Supp Fig S4C and S4D), which show that the V-domain plays an important role in debranching but plays no role in destabilizing SPIN90-Arp2/3 at filament pointed ends. These new results reinforce our statement that VCA affects branched and linear Arp2/3-generated filaments differently.

      Minor:

      In GST-pull-down experiments (Fig. 4G), the amount of Arp2/3 complex bound is analyzed by Western, which is rather unprecise. Is the amount of Arp2/3 complex so little that it cannot be quantified using regular SDS-PAGE? If that is the case, this would suggest rather low affinity of SPIN90 for Arp2/3 complex. How does this affect the proposed mechanism and experiments in the microfluidics chamber?

      Indeed, the amount of pulled-down Arp2/3 is low and difficult to quantify by SDS-PAGE. This is consistent with previous reports which indicate a low affinity of SPIN90 for the Arp2/3 complex (Wagner et al. Current Biology 2013, Balzer et al. eLife 2020). This does not affect our conclusions, which we now confirm by showing quantified repeats of our pull-down experiments (new panels H and I, in Figure 4). In spite of this low affinity, which makes it difficult to saturate SPIN90 with Arp2/3, the SPIN90-Arp2/3 interaction is very stable and allows us to carry out our experiments in the microfluidics chamber over several tens of minutes (as was already the case in our previous study, Cao et al. NCB 2020).

      Reviewer #3 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      Summary:

      In this study, Cao and collaborators investigate the biochemical and mechanical differences between branched actin filaments nucleated by WASP-activated Arp2/3 complex and linear actin filaments nucleated by SPIN90-activated Arp2/3 complex. They use TIRF microscopy in a microfluidic chamber to show that the mammalian proteins, SPIN90 and WASP (or N-WASP or WAVE), like their yeast homologues, co-activate Arp2/3 complex to nucleate linear actin filaments. Using the same assays, they find the surprising result that the VCA segment of WASP proteins destabilizes the interaction between SPIN90 and Arp2/3 complex in linear actin filaments nucleated by Arp2/3 complex. They then show that VCA also destabilizes actin filament branches. The remainder of the study explores the influence of branch stabilizing/destabilizing proteins or mechanical stress on the stability of the interaction between SPIN90 and Arp2/3 complex on the pointed end of the actin filament. They find that like branch junctions, SPIN90-bound Arp2/3 is destabilized at the end of linear filaments by GMF and stabilized by cortactin. However, unlike branch junctions, SPIN90-Arp2/3 complex is not destabilized on filament ends by piconewton forces or by aging. They conclude that SPIN90- versus VCA-activated Arp2/3 complex adopt similar but non-identical conformations.

      Overall, the paper is well written and the experiments, which are very challenging, are rigorously executed. The biochemical results are convincing, novel and unexpected. However, the work could be strengthened by more strongly connecting the biochemical observations to biological implications. In addition, there are some interpretations/conclusions that seem somewhat weakly supported, and the authors should consider revising. Nonetheless, given the quality of the work and the importance of the system, this manuscript will appeal to a broad audience.

      We thank the reviewer for their positive comments. We have rewritten parts of the Discussion in order to better connect our observations to implications in cells. We address the concerns regarding our interpretations in the point-by-point, below.

      Comments on evidence, reproducibility, clarity and significance:

      The differences in the stability of SPIN90-Arp2/3 on linear filaments verses branch junctions led the authors to conclude that SPIN90- versus VCA-activated complexes adopt similar yet non-identical conformations. There are two problems with this conclusion:

      1) This conclusion rests on the idea that the biochemical differences can only be due to differences in the "ground state" active conformations of the complex. Another possible scenario would be that the active conformations are the same, but the transition state or intermediate state structures within the debranching reactions are different, thus changing the kinetics of the debranching reactions.

      We thank the reviewer for this remark, and we agree that conformational differences may also arise in the intermediate states, during dissociation (of the branch from the mother, or of the linear filaments from SPIN90). We now mention this possibility in our Discussion.

      2.) There are already structural data showing conformational differences between the Dip1-bound Arp2/3 complex on the end of a linear filament and Arp2/3 complex at a branch junction. While there are some caveats to comparisons of the structures (e.g., the Dip1 structure includes the fission yeast SPIN90 protein (Dip1) and the fission yeast Arp2/3 complex while the branch junction contains mammalian proteins), these data offer much stronger evidence that the active states adopt (somewhat) different conformations than the data presented here.

      We agree that the available structural data (in particular, Ding et al. PNAS 2022, which was not yet published when we submitted our manuscript, and which we now cite) provide a clear indication that active Arp2/3 adopts different conformations in branches and linear filaments. We have modified our text to make this point clearer.

      The authors make comparisons between the Fäβler branch junction structure and the Shaaban Dip1-Arp2/3-filament structure. The Fäβler branch junction structure is a low resolution structure (9 angstroms) and should be interpreted with caution (see below). A much higher resolution of a branch junction structure was recently solved (Ding et al, PNAS 2022) and should be used for comparisons between the structures.

      Ding et al. PNAS 2022 was not yet published when we submitted our manuscript. We now use it to compare the structures of active Arp2/3, and we have modified the text accordingly.

      Pg 14 - The authors say differences between ARPC3-Arp2 and ARPC5-Arp2 contacts in the two structures are likely to cause the differences in interactions with GMF and VCA. Two concerns with this statement are: 1.) The basis for the conclusion that the ARPC5-Arp2 contacts are different (in Fäβler, et al.) is not solid (see Ding, et al) and 2.) The analysis is vague. To reasonably conclude that differences in the contacts would influence GMF and VCA interactions would require mapping out the structural connection between the ARPC3-Arp2 interaction site and the GMF or VCA binding sites. If there is no obvious connection between these sites, the conclusion that the differences in the ARPC3-Arp2 interface cause differences in VCA and GMF binding should be far more circumspect.

      We have re-written this part of the Discussion section. In light of the new data by Ding et al., we agree with the reviewer that the conclusion that the ARPC5-Arp2 contacts are different is not solid. Our revised text makes it clear that we are not making any claims involving interactions within the Arp2/3 complex. Our point is simply that recent cryo-EM reports indicate conformational differences in Arp2 and Arp3 between the two activated forms of the Arp2/3 complex and that, since the CA-domain of NPFs bind to Arp2 and Arp3, it appears reasonable to make a connection with our results.

      Pg 6. "These observations suggest that the ability of VCA to destabilize Arp2/3-nucleated filaments relies on the availability of its V-domain." It's possible that G-actin binding to V blocks the CA from accessing the branch junction. Therefore, it seems important to test whether N-WASP-CA can destabilize Arp2/3-nucleated actin filaments.

      We thank the reviewer for this suggestion. We now present results from new experiments performed with the CA-domain of NWASP (new Supp Fig S4C,D). We find that the V-domain participates in the enhancement of debranching, but that it appears to play no role in the destabilization of SPIN90-Arp2/3 from the pointed end. It thus seems that the reviewer’s proposal is correct, and that G-actin binding to the V-domain blocks the CA-domain from accessing the branch junction. We now propose this interpretation in the text.

      Pg 1 - The authors state that "It thus appears that linear and branched Arp2/3-generated filaments respond similarly to regulatory proteins, albeit with quantitative differences". It is worth considering if one should make a blanket statement that linear and branched filaments respond similarly to regulatory proteins when they have tested 3 in total.

      We have rephrased this sentence. It now reads “… respond similarly to the regulatory proteins we have tested…”

      Pg 3 - "More generally, the stability of SPIN90-Arp2/3 at the pointed end, which is important to understand the reorganization and disassembly of actin filament networks, remains to be established." In some ways this statement not quite accurate because Balzer et al previously showed that Dip1-Arp2/3 complex is very stable at the pointed end. Is the question here whether that stability is also conserved in mammalian systems? If so, that should be more directly stated.

      We meant that, beyond observing that SPIN90 remains visible at the pointed end for some time (as in Balzer et al.), a lot remained unknown: its lifetime had not been quantified, and its sensitivity to the factors that affect branch junctions (proteins, aging, mechanical tension) had not been studied. We have rephrased the sentence in the manuscript to clarify this point.

      The observation that VCA accelerates debranching and SPIN90-Arp2/3 dissociation is very interesting. However, it is uncertain if this biochemical activity has biological relevance, given that once nucleation occurs, Arp2/3 complex will move away from the membrane. While the authors mention in the discussion that debranching by VCA could be relevant when the network is compressed near the membrane, this argument is not particularly strong. Are there ways to strengthen this argument, or find another impact this finding might have on our understanding of Arp2/3 complex regulation?

      We now mention another situation where branch junctions could encounter membrane-bound VCA domains: on the dorsal and ventral membrane surfaces of lamellipodia. We now cite the recent Kage et al. J Cell Science 2022 and Mehidi et al. NCB 2021, where WAVE has been observed in lamellipodia away from the leading edge.

      The observation that SPIN90+Arp2/3-nucleated filaments are not sensitive to piconewton forces is also very interesting. The authors focus on the differences in the amount of surface area buried when discussing this result. However, if seems a key factor in the stability of the linear filaments would be the direction of the force relative to the complex and attached filament(s), which would be very different for a branch versus a linear filament. The authors should consider addressing this in their discussion.

      The orientation of the applied force is an interesting point. In their study on debranching, Pandit et al. (PNAS 2020) report that their results are not affected by the angle of the applied force relative to the mother filament (their Fig S1D). We now specify this in our manuscript, when introducing our results on mechanical tension. Similarly, we found that anchoring SPIN90 to the coverslip surface by its N-terminus rather than its C-terminus, which likely affects the orientation of the applied force, had no impact on our results (Supp Fig S6A). We have now also added a sentence regarding this aspect in our manuscript, after presenting this result.

      Fig 4, D-F: It is unclear how the authors determined which filaments were spontaneously nucleated versus those that were nucleated by SPIN90-Arp2/3 complex in these experiments. In reactions containing SPIN90 and Arp2/3 complex what fraction of the filaments will be spontaneously nucleated?

      In our conditions, there is no detectable spontaneous nucleation. In control experiments where we flow in the same concentration of G-actin, in the absence of Arp2/3 or in the absence of SPIN90, we observe no filaments at all on the surface, over several fields of view, after 5 minutes. We now specify this in the Methods section.

      Pg 9 - The observation that VCA negatively influences binding of SPIN90 to the complex is unexpected. What implications does this have for understanding how SPIN90 and VCA synergize to activate the complex?

      It appears that the outcome depends on the context. The main role of VCA during co-activation of the Arp2/3 complex with SPIN90 seems to be to supply G-actin, as already proposed (Balzer, 2020) and confirmed by our results (Fig 1C). In the absence of G-actin, VCA is more likely to remove Arp2/3 from SPIN90 (Fig 4G,I). Similarly, when a filament is already formed, the presence of G-actin mitigates the removal of SPIN90-Arp2/3 from the pointed end by VCA (Supp Fig S4).

      Fig 4B - Why is there greater nucleation when Arp2/3 complex and GMF are added together compared to renucleation in reactions that don't have any GMF? This is surprising, especially considering that GMF decreases binding of Arp2/3 complex to SPIN90.

      Indeed, there is a small yet statistically significant difference in the re-nucleation fraction we measured in the presence of Arp2/3, with or without GMF (Fig 4B). This may be due to the different timescales of the two situations. In the absence of GMF, the detachment of filaments is slow and new filaments are nucleated from the initial Arp2/3 complexes, which remained bound to SPIN90 upon detachment of the first filaments. In contrast, in the presence of GMF, detachment is faster and accompanied by the departure of the initial Arp2/3, and a fresh Arp2/3 then binds to SPIN90 to nucleate a new filament. It is thus possible that, in the absence of GMF, a small fraction of the SPIN90 and/or their initially bound Arp2/3 complexes would denature over the time they spend at the bottom of the microchamber at 25°C, thereby leading to a slightly smaller re-nucleation fraction. A similar mechanism could be at play in the experiments with or without VCA, in addition to the enhancement of nucleation by VCA (Fig 4C).

      Minor Corrections/Comments

      Pg 3 "We show that Arp2/3 nucleation is similarly stabilized by cortactin and destabilized by GMF" Do the authors mean branches and linear filaments nucleated by Arp2/3 complex?

      Yes, that is what we meant. This sentence has now been modified.

      Pg 6- The cyan 3uM data and legend in figure 2B and E is probably too dim to see clearly.

      The colors have been changed to improve readability.

      Fig 4 B,C,E,F: It would be best to show the individual data points here if possible.

      We now show individual data points in all these figure panels.

      Pg 16 Please specify which antibody was used to anchor SPIN90.

      The antibodies are Anti-GST for Nter anchoring of GST-SPIN90, and anti-His for Cter anchoring of SPIN90-His. We now specify this in the Methods section.

      CROSS-CONSULTATION COMMENTS I agree with the points that the other reviewers raised.

      Reviewer #3 (Significance (Required)):

      Comments on significance are in the above section.

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      Referee #3

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary:

      In this study, Cao and collaborators investigate the biochemical and mechanical differences between branched actin filaments nucleated by WASP-activated Arp2/3 complex and linear actin filaments nucleated by SPIN90-activated Arp2/3 complex. They use TIRF microscopy in a microfluidic chamber to show that the mammalian proteins, SPIN90 and WASP (or N-WASP or WAVE), like their yeast homologues, co-activate Arp2/3 complex to nucleate linear actin filaments. Using the same assays, they find the surprising result that the VCA segment of WASP proteins destabilizes the interaction between SPIN90 and Arp2/3 complex in linear actin filaments nucleated by Arp2/3 complex. They then show that VCA also destabilizes actin filament branches. The remainder of the study explores the influence of branch stabilizing/destabilizing proteins or mechanical stress on the stability of the interaction between SPIN90 and Arp2/3 complex on the pointed end of the actin filament. They find that like branch junctions, SPIN90-bound Arp2/3 is destabilized at the end of linear filaments by GMF and stabilized by cortactin. However, unlike branch junctions, SPIN90-Arp2/3 complex is not destabilized on filament ends by piconewton forces or by aging. They conclude that SPIN90- versus VCA-activated Arp2/3 complex adopt similar but non-identical conformations.

      Overall, the paper is well written and the experiments, which are very challenging, are rigorously executed. The biochemical results are convincing, novel and unexpected. However, the work could be strengthened by more strongly connecting the biochemical observations to biological implications. In addition, there are some interpretations/conclusions that seem somewhat weakly supported, and the authors should consider revising. Nonetheless, given the quality of the work and the importance of the system, this manuscript will appeal to a broad audience.

      Comments on evidence, reproducibility, clarity and significance:

      The differences in the stability of SPIN90-Arp2/3 on linear filaments verses branch junctions led the authors to conclude that SPIN90- versus VCA-activated complexes adopt similar yet non-identical conformations. There are two problems with this conclusion:

      1. This conclusion rests on the idea that the biochemical differences can only be due to differences in the "ground state" active conformations of the complex. Another possible scenario would be that the active conformations are the same, but the transition state or intermediate state structures within the debranching reactions are different, thus changing the kinetics of the debranching reactions.
      2. There are already structural data showing conformational differences between the Dip1-bound Arp2/3 complex on the end of a linear filament and Arp2/3 complex at a branch junction. While there are some caveats to comparisons of the structures (e.g., the Dip1 structure includes the fission yeast SPIN90 protein (Dip1) and the fission yeast Arp2/3 complex while the branch junction contains mammalian proteins), these data offer much stronger evidence that the active states adopt (somewhat) different conformations than the data presented here.

      The authors make comparisons between the Fäβler branch junction structure and the Shaaban Dip1-Arp2/3-filament structure. The Fäβler branch junction structure is a low resolution structure (9 angstroms) and should be interpreted with caution (see below). A much higher resolution of a branch junction structure was recently solved (Ding et al, PNAS 2022) and should be used for comparisons between the structures.

      Pg 14 - The authors say differences between ARPC3-Arp2 and ARPC5-Arp2 contacts in the two structures are likely to cause the differences in interactions with GMF and VCA. Two concerns with this statement are: 1.) The basis for the conclusion that the ARPC5-Arp2 contacts are different (in Fäβler, et al.) is not solid (see Ding, et al) and 2.) The analysis is vague. To reasonably conclude that differences in the contacts would influence GMF and VCA interactions would require mapping out the structural connection between the ARPC3-Arp2 interaction site and the GMF or VCA binding sites. If there is no obvious connection between these sites, the conclusion that the differences in the ARPC3-Arp2 interface cause differences in VCA and GMF binding should be far more circumspect.

      Pg 6. "These observations suggest that the ability of VCA to destabilize Arp2/3-nucleated filaments relies on the availability of its V-domain." It's possible that G-actin binding to V blocks the CA from accessing the branch junction. Therefore, it seems important to test whether N-WASP-CA can destabilize Arp2/3-nucleated actin filaments.

      Pg 1 - The authors state that "It thus appears that linear and branched Arp2/3-generated filaments respond similarly to regulatory proteins, albeit with quantitative differences". It is worth considering if one should make a blanket statement that linear and branched filaments respond similarly to regulatory proteins when they have tested 3 in total.

      Pg 3 - "More generally, the stability of SPIN90-Arp2/3 at the pointed end, which is important to understand the reorganization and disassembly of actin filament networks, remains to be established." In some ways this statement not quite accurate because Balzer et al previously showed that Dip1-Arp2/3 complex is very stable at the pointed end. Is the question here whether that stability is also conserved in mammalian systems? If so, that should be more directly stated.

      The observation that VCA accelerates debranching and SPIN90-Arp2/3 dissociation is very interesting. However, it is uncertain if this biochemical activity has biological relevance, given that once nucleation occurs, Arp2/3 complex will move away from the membrane. While the authors mention in the discussion that debranching by VCA could be relevant when the network is compressed near the membrane, this argument is not particularly strong. Are there ways to strengthen this argument, or find another impact this finding might have on our understanding of Arp2/3 complex regulation?

      The observation that SPIN90+Arp2/3-nucleated filaments are not sensitive to piconewton forces is also very interesting. The authors focus on the differences in the amount of surface area buried when discussing this result. However, if seems a key factor in the stability of the linear filaments would be the direction of the force relative to the complex and attached filament(s), which would be very different for a branch versus a linear filament. The authors should consider addressing this in their discussion.

      Fig 4, D-F: It is unclear how the authors determined which filaments were spontaneously nucleated versus those that were nucleated by SPIN90-Arp2/3 complex in these experiments. In reactions containing SPIN90 and Arp2/3 complex what fraction of the filaments will be spontaneously nucleated?

      Pg 9 - The observation that VCA negatively influences binding of SPIN90 to the complex is unexpected. What implications does this have for understanding how SPIN90 and VCA synergize to activate the complex?

      Fig 4B - Why is there greater nucleation when Arp2/3 complex and GMF are added together compared to renucleation in reactions that don't have any GMF? This is surprising, especially considering that GMF decreases binding of Arp2/3 complex to SPIN90.

      Minor Corrections/Comments

      Pg 3 "We show that Arp2/3 nucleation is similarly stabilized by cortactin and destabilized by GMF" Do the authors mean branches and linear filaments nucleated by Arp2/3 complex?

      Pg 6- The cyan 3uM data and legend in figure 2B and E is probably too dim to see clearly.

      Fig 4 B,C,E,F: It would be best to show the individual data points here if possible.

      Pg 16 Please specify which antibody was used to anchor SPIN90.

      Referees cross-commenting

      I agree with the points that the other reviewers raised.

      Significance

      Comments on significance are in the above section.

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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      The quantitative analysis can be improved. It appears that most of the data results from single experiments, with rate values and errors resulting from fitting of single experiments without repetitions. In Fig. 1C legend (p.5) the authors state "These experiments were repeated three times, with similar results", but the data is not used in the analysis and other experiments do not mention this point. This is particularly important for comparisons among different VCAs that are rather similar in nature. In Fig. 1B. N-WASP is more efficient in nucleating SPIN90-Arp2/3 complex-linear filaments followed by WASP and then WASH. In Fig. 2 B,C, N-WASP is the most effective in dissociating SPIN90-Arp2/3 complex linear filaments followed by WASH and then WASP. But in Fig. 2 E,F, WASH is by far the most effective in dissociating branches followed by N-WASP and then WASP. Therefore, the conclusion in the Discussion (p.12) "While these regulatory proteins similarly affect branched and linear Arp2/3-generated filaments, they do so with clear quantitative differences" is not supported by quantification. To remedy this problem the authors should include at least 3 repeats of each experiment in data analysis. Also, they could include an analysis of sequence differences among VCAs and discuss how these may correlate with the observed differences. For instance, one WH2 in WASP vs. two in N-WASP.

      Significance

      Arp2/3 complex is a 7-protein complex implicated in actin filament nucleation and branching. Arp2/3 complex-nucleated branched networks are found at several locations in cells and are responsible for processes such as cell motility.

      Cao et al. compare the effect of several proteins on the filament nucleation activity of Arp2/3 complex, and the stabilization or destabilization of actin filament branches as well as linear actin filaments nucleated by SPIN90-Arp2/3 complex. The proteins tested include the VCA regions of three NPFs (N-WASP, WASP, and WASH) that activate Arp2/3 complex, GMF (a debranching protein) and cortactin (a branch stabilizing protein). For the most part, the study uses a single method, microfluidics-TIRF microscopy.

      The main findings are:

      1. VCA domains enhance nucleation of linear filaments by SPIN90-Arp2/3 complex in the presence of actin monomers.
      2. However, VCA domains can also destabilize existing SPIN90-Arp2/3 complex linear filaments and branches, and this effect depends on the presence of of V-domain (WH2 domain that binds actin monomers).
      3. The debranching factor GMF also destabilizes SPIN90-Arp2/3 complex linear filaments. Both GMF and VCA generate free pointed ends by dissociating Arp2/3 complex from pointed ends and SPIN90.
      4. SPIN90-Arp2/3 complex linear filaments are less susceptible to force and aging than filament branches.
      5. Cortactin stabilizes SPIN90-Arp2/3 complex linear filaments to higher degree than it does branches.

      These are novel and very interesting new observations of significant interest to the actin cytoskeleton field. Therefore, I recommend publication of this paper in EMBO J. I have one recommendation and one suggestion for improvement:

      Major:

      1. The quantitative analysis can be improved. It appears that most of the data results from single experiments, with rate values and errors resulting from fitting of single experiments without repetitions. In Fig. 1C legend (p.5) the authors state "These experiments were repeated three times, with similar results", but the data is not used in the analysis and other experiments do not mention this point. This is particularly important for comparisons among different VCAs that are rather similar in nature. In Fig. 1B. N-WASP is more efficient in nucleating SPIN90-Arp2/3 complex-linear filaments followed by WASP and then WASH. In Fig. 2 B,C, N-WASP is the most effective in dissociating SPIN90-Arp2/3 complex linear filaments followed by WASH and then WASP. But in Fig. 2 E,F, WASH is by far the most effective in dissociating branches followed by N-WASP and then WASP. Therefore, the conclusion in the Discussion (p.12) "While these regulatory proteins similarly affect branched and linear Arp2/3-generated filaments, they do so with clear quantitative differences" is not supported by quantification. To remedy this problem the authors should include at least 3 repeats of each experiment in data analysis. Also, they could include an analysis of sequence differences among VCAs and discuss how these may correlate with the observed differences. For instance, one WH2 in WASP vs. two in N-WASP.

      Minor:

      1. In GST-pull-down experiments (Fig. 4G), the amount of Arp2/3 complex bound is analyzed by Western, which is rather unprecise. Is the amount of Arp2/3 complex so little that it cannot be quantified using regular SDS-PAGE? If that is the case, this would suggest rather low affinity of SPIN90 for Arp2/3 complex. How does this affect the proposed mechanism and experiments in the microfluidics chamber?
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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      An exciting development in our knowledge about how the Arp2/3 complex controls the assembly of actin networks has come from the discovery that in addition to forming branched networks, Arp2/3 can nucleate linear filaments when it is activated by WISH/DIP/SPIN90. However, despite some excellent work largely done by the Nolen lab in yeast, many questions remain about how Arp2/3-mediated assembly of branched vs. linear actin filament. This is especially true in the complex environment of cells, were synergy and competition of different actin networks is used to control biological processes. Knowing the biochemical and physical properties of these different Arp2/3 assemblies will be key to figuring out how they work in cells. Here Cao et al. use an elegant microfluidics based single filament assay system to perform a comparative analysis of the stability of linear and branched Arp2/3 networks. They find interesting differences in how they respond to stabilizing and destabilizing factors. The most striking differences happens when force or aging is applied- both cause debranching of branched networks but have little effect on Spin90-Arp2/3 nucleated filaments.

      Major comments:

      As a comparative study on the stability of branched vs. linear Arp2/3 nucleated filaments, this manuscript is fairly complete. The key conclusions are well supported by rigorous experiments which can be reproduced by others based on the information provided. However, I am not seeing explicit information on performing biological replicates. This should be included in the manuscript. The use of statistics is largely fine; however I question the use of one statistical test on one figure (see minor comments below).

      I would not ask for additional experiments at this time. However, there is an analysis that would be important for interpreting the authors' claims- branch/filament length at the time of dissociation or destabilization of Arp2/3. This would help address if there was a physical tipping point for each type of structure that could explain potential differences they see. The authors should already have this data and the time to complete it would be negligible in delaying publication.

      One additional major comment is that the manuscript's title and abstract hint that this paper explores the differences in nucleation of branched vs. linear filaments by Arp2/3. However, the only figure that deals explicitly with nucleation in the paper is Figure 1, which is really just a confirmation that the mammalian proteins used in this study perform similarly to their yeast homologues (Balzer et al, Current Biology 2019). The authors might think about rewording the title/abstract to better reflect that paper really explores the differences in the stability of the two networks

      Minor comments:

      1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women are red/green colorblind. Please change the coloring of the schematics and images so that they can be easily seen by all people. This is especially true of the schematics, which are important for understanding exactly what each assay is measuring.

      The Introduction is a bit choppy and unfocused. It was difficult to deduce exactly where the paper was going from it. Please consider re-writing it for better clarity. The Discussion on the other hand was fantastic. Great job on interpreting your results in a larger context.

      Many figures- while the use of different lightness values of the same color is appreciated in conveying different concentrations of reagents used, there were several instances where it was very hard to read the one on the very bottom (ex. 2B, E; 3A; 5C, G).

      Figure 1- since this is a confirmation of previous results performed using the same proteins from other species, the title should reflect that (ex. VCA domains accelerate the nucleation of filaments by mammalian SPIN90-Arp2/3). Also, to me this figure is supplementary to the main message of the paper. The authors might think of moving it to Supplementary Information.

      Figure 1- If the goal was to verify that G-actin recruitment by VCA was important for Spin90-Arp 2/3 nucleation by performing a competition experiment with profilin, why was the concentration of G-actin AND profilin increased between the experiments in 1B vs. 1C. It makes it hard to directly compare the results.

      Figure 4B-F- Here, it would be nice to see the distribution of all the individual results, which are hidden by the bar graph. Additionally, the Chi-square test is not the appropriate test for evaluating statistical significance between multiple groups. ANOVA followed by an appropriate post hoc test should be used here.

      Figure 4G- Please quantify and show reproducibility.

      Figure 5- the piconewton forces used for these experiments is in line with measured forces that are applied to actin in cells (ex. Mehida et al, Nature Cell Biology 2021; Jiang et al, Nature 2003). The text would benefit if this was explicitly stated.

      Significance

      The real significance of this work is in characterizing the differential stabilities of linear vs. branched Arp2/3 filaments in response to actin-binding proteins, mechanical stress, and aging. While both types of filaments respond similarly to actin-binding proteins, with nuanced differences, the most striking results came from applied force and aging experiments, with Spin90-Arp2/3 filaments being much more resistant to both. This has some very interesting implications for how these two types of assemblies might synergize in cells. Additionally, the results also have some exciting implications for the pointed-end regulation of actin filaments, which is still poorly understood in complex systems. Since the manuscript is A) more of a survey study on the factors that influence filament stability that does not go particularly deep into any particular mechanism of regulation and B) has no direct applicability to how the physical properties of branched and linear Arp2/3 nucleated actin filaments influence actin network activity in cells, the audience will likely by limited to actin enthusiasts. However, the work is still important in both what it reveals and implies.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      We thank all three reviewers for their thoughtful and rigorous critique of our manuscript, which we feel has significantly improved the presentation of our work. Below we detail point-by-point responses to comments made by the three reviewers as well changes we have already made addressing the majority of minor and some major points.

      Specification of the eye-field during gastrulation represents the earliest known stage of eye development. Using an optic-vesicle organoid model system, the overall goal of our work is to provide an unbiased characterisation of this critical, early developmental event in mammals and to gain insights into relevant gene regulatory mechanisms. A common theme to some of the reviewer comments is that this work doesn't provide much of an advance to the field and our findings are not particularly original. We feel that these comments are slightly harsh for the following reasons. Firstly, although some of our findings are not unexpected, to our knowledge, this is the first unbiased characterisation of the eye-field in a mammalian model system, and not based on knowledge gained through previous work in other non-mammalian vertebrate systems, e.g. Xenopus. Secondly, by generating both RNA-seq and ATAC-seq from a timecourse of organoid development we have been able to quantify dynamic patterns of gene-expression as the eye-field is established and simultaneously gain insights to the regulatory role of some of the key transcription factors, both of which are not present in the literature. Thirdly, by constructing careful, integrated analyses of our RNA-seq and ATAC-seq datasets we were able to generate specific hypotheses regarding cis-regulation of key genes, which we have then demonstrated are possible to efficiently test within the organoid system. In all, although we have been purposely careful not to overinterpret our results, we feel our work does represent a significant step towards understanding the mammalian eye field and additionally provides important datasets as well as an analysis framework to begin to quantitatively probe the regulatory mechanisms underlying the transition to an ocular fate. Given the relevance of this developmental event to clinical genetics research as well as to developmental biology we are confident that this work represents an important and significant advance to the literature.

      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      Summary Owen et al. characterize the transcriptome and chromatin accessibility of mouse retinal organoids at early stages during which eye field-like cells are specified. Since cell specification and differentiation in retinal organoids largely mimic those processes in vivo, retinal organoids are viable models for studying the mechanisms of early eye development. Owen et al. utilize a previously established Rx-GFP cell line, bulk RNA sequencing, and bulk ATAC sequencing to dissect the mechanisms of early eye development in mice. Their findings are generally consistent with previous studies. Overall, the study is interesting for the field, but its conceptual and technical advances are moderate. In addition, a few major points need to be clarified.

      Major points 1. The authors did not show any analysis of retinal organoids at stages when Vsx2 is expressed. This is a significant weakness since the chemically defined medium (CDM) used in Owen et al.'s study was previously shown to induce rostral hypothalamic differentiation (Wataya et al., 2008). Related to this notion, several eye-field transcription factors, such as Rax and Six3, are also expressed in the hypothalamus. Therefore, Owen et al. need to demonstrate that organoids in their modified differentiation system efficiently produce Vsx2-positive retinal progenitors, and samples of organoids at stages when Vsx2 is expressed should be included for RNA sequencing. If Vsx2 is not efficiently expressed in their organoids, the interpretation of results will be very different.

      We thank the reviewer for their important comments here. There are several reasons why we are confident that our data and conclusions regarding the organoid eye-field are robust. Firstly, our RNA-seq data, in particular the differences between GFP-positive and GFP-negative cells, clearly show a coordinated up-regulation of the set of canonical eye-field TFs (not individually), which previous studies in Xenopus have shown is a prerequisite for differentiation into anterior eye structures (including retina). Secondly, we have checked that some of the later (in development) eye markers, including Vsx2, are differentially up-regulated (DeSeq2, logfc>1.5, FDRIn all, we are very confident that our approach of using the optic-vesicle organoids and generating molecular data from an organoid developmental timecourse (including sorting), is unpicking the ocular-fate transition event that we are interested in.

      1. The authors state that "two differentiation medias were used for this work due to the differentiation becoming unstable after the initial experiments had been performed. The organoids used for RNA and ATAC-seq were grown in CDM media and the organoids with mutations introduced in potential CREs were grown in KSR media". Why the differentiation becomes unstable after the initial experiments? Differences in the two media cause additional complexities. Related to this notion, "WT Rx-GFP" in Figure 4B and 4E appears to show a different expression pattern compared to that in Figure 1A.

      We were unable to identify the reason behind the destabilisation of differentiation in CDM media after the cell lines had been through CRISPR despite thorough testing. The differentiation of these cell lines was stabilised enough using KSR media such that every batch of organoids grown contained some organoids that expressed GFP in a pattern similar to what we had seen before and we carried on our experiments using this. We recognise that using two different media adds complexity, however we see the same patterns of organoid growth and GFP expression when differentiating untransfected WT Rax-GFP cells in both of these medias. We have edited Fig.S1 to include representative images of organoids grown in KSR media which can be directly compared to those grown in CDM shown in Figure 1A.

      The reviewer has pointed out that the WT Rx-GFP organoids in Figure 6B and 6E show a different expression pattern to those in figure 1A. With the addition of the supplemental figure mentioned above it becomes apparent that these differences are not due to the change of media. We have clarified in the text that these WT cells have also been transfected so as to act as appropriate controls that have been treated identically to the CRISPR edited cell lines and that this has affected their differentiation capacity.

      1. Is the deletion of Rax and Six6 regulatory elements homozygous? Sanger sequencing or amplicon sequencing is needed to show the deletion.

      The deletions are homozygous (we have stated this in the manuscript text) and as suggested we have added a supplementary figure showing the Sanger sequencing traces for the WT and mutant cell lines used in this study.

      1. The deletion of Rax and Six6 regulatory elements appears to cause minor changes in the expression of Rax and Six6 (Figure 6C, F). Therefore, the impact of findings in bulk RNA seq and bulk ATAC seq in this study is still unclear.

      We have added a sentence to the text underlining that developmental genes are expected to be regulated by multiple enhancers. Our expectation is therefore, that in perturbing a single putative regulatory element for Rax/Six6, we will very likely not see the complete ablation of Rax/Six6 expression.

      1. Retinal organoids and sorted cells are composed of heterogeneous cell populations. Bulk RNA seq and bulk ATAC seq do not have the power to dissect the complexity of heterogeneous cell populations. Single-cell RNA seq and single-cell ATAC seq are more powerful for this study.

      We agree with the referee about the fact that the organoids are likely composed of relatively heterogeneous cell populations. We have added this limitation of our generated datasets in a “limitations” paragraph in the discussion.

      1. Numerous motifs in the JASPAR database are identified using in vitro assays and have not been validated using in vivo assays. Unexpected results in motif analysis could be due to the differences in DNA binding motifs between in vitro and in vivo conditions. This notion should be added in the discussion.

      We have added a couple of sentences in the discussion section, highlighting that TF-motif and footprinting analyses of ATAC-seq data provide indirect evidence of TF binding, and to validate these findings experiments such as ChIP-seq or Cut&Run could be performed in the future.

      Minor points

      Numerous labels in figures are too small.

      We have adjusted the size of a number of the figures to increase the size of the labels, which are now mostly the same size as the text in the corresponding figure captions. We are very happy to make further increases in the sizes of figure labels/text upon recommendation.

      CROSS-CONSULTATION COMMENTS

      My fellow reviewers identify similar major weaknesses and additional points. I agree with the other reviewers' comments.

      Reviewer #1 (Significance (Required)): Nature and Significance of the advances In Owen et al.'s study, the Rx-GFP cell line and retinal differentiation protocol were established in previous studies (Wataya et al., 2008; Eiraku et al., 2011); bulk RNA sequencing and bulk ATAC sequencing are standard procedures. Although candidate regulatory elements for early eye development are identified, deletions of two prioritized elements using CRISPR/Cas9 only cause minor changes in the expression of targeted genes. Overall, conceptual and technical advances in Owen et al.'s study are moderate. Compare to existing published knowledge The datasets could be useful for the field, but conceptual and technical advances are moderate.

      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      The authors grow eye organoids from cells with a reporter driving GFP in the Rax locus, a gene that is expressed in the eye field in many animal model systems. They show that expression of GFP picks up by day 4 and performed FACS sorting of GFP+ cells on day 4 and day 5 organoids to compare gene expression by RNAseq comparing with earlier day organoids. The data shows 37 genes with a differential expression on days 4 and 5, compared to day 3, and enriched in GFP+ cells, which they define as EF-up genes. It is notable that some of these genes had already been identified as canonical eye field gene regulatory network transcription factors. In the same way, they identify a group of differentially expressed regulated genes, EF-down, and state that 'many' of them are involved in pluripotency. However, they do not mention how many, or the proportion of these genes in the whole list.

      The number of EF-down genes with GO terms linked to pluripotency has now been added to the text.

      It would be useful if they could provide the number to understand how many of these genes are related to pluripotency, the whole list of genes mentioned to be downregulated in a supplementary file.

      We appreciate that this list was missing and will include it now as a supplemental file.

      The authors also note that genes known to be required for eye specification like Sox2 and Otx2 are not differentially expressed across the day 3-4 timepoint (Ln 190). However, this is not surprising considering that both genes are broadly expressed in the anterior neural ectoderm and required for its specification, which should be noted by the authors.

      We have amended the aforementioned sentence to reflect this: “It is noteworthy that Sox2 and Otx2, known to be crucial in eye development are not differentially expressed across this critical time-point (Fig.2A), consistent with these genes being more broadly expressed in the anterior neuroectoderm in vivo.”

      The authors then go on and cluster the EF-up, EF-down and genes deferentially expressed between days 2 and 3, and identify 6 discreet trajectory groups. From this analysis, they identify a third group of genes which shows a peak on day 3 but whose expression falls on days 4 and 5. It is interesting to see that this group includes Wnt and Fgf morphogenes. The authors should provide a list of the genes in the different clusters for the readers to inspect and analyse.

      We note that there was a typo in the original manuscirpt and the genes that were clustered were the EF-up and EF-down genes. This typo has been fixed and the requested information is now available in a supplementary file.

      Aiming to generate insight into the cis-regulatory elements that regulate of the genes the authors found differentially expressed in their model system they performed a series of ATAC-seq experiments. When linking the genomic regions with differential ATAC-seq accessibility to gene locus using the GREAT analysis, they identified association to 22 of the EF-up and 161 of the EF-down genes. This suggests a functional link between the ATAC-seq genomic regions and the gene regulation of the differentially expressed genes.

      The authors later screened the ATAC-seq regions of increased accessibility for TF binding motifs and found that these regions were enriched with motifs for EFTF genes Rax, Lhx2 and Pax6. When assessing motifs in the ATAC-seq regions in EF-up TADs, Rax and Lhx2 motifs scored highly associated to open chromatin positions. Authors also observe a positive gene expression-accessibility correlation between in Pax6, Lhx2, Six3 and Otx2, and suggest this could mean these genes activate transcription of the EF-up group of genes. The same analysis, but focusing on EF-down genes, suggests that EFTFs repress the expression of EF-down genes which include those involved in pluripotency.

      Further interrogating the ATAC-seq data, the authors use TOBIAS footprinting analysis to identify changes in TF binding in EF-TADs and EF-up motifs. Remarkably, whole genome analysis reveals that the largest increase in motif binding corresponds to EF-up genes Rax, Pax6 and Lhx2. The authors then narrow down on specific gene regulation by studying the ATAC-seq data within the TAD of Rax and Six6. However, they do not explain the rationale for which these two genes were highlighted, and why Pax6 or Lhx2 were excluded. This explanation should be added to the manuscript.

      We have expanded this section of the manuscript to explain that Rax and Six6 were prioritised due to the GFP readout of Rax expression and Six6 being located in a smaller and thus less complex TAD than Pax6, Six3 and Lhx2 after the initial analysis was performed for all five TADs.

      The analysis identifies three regulatory elements in the Rax TAD and two for Six6. They then go on and study one putative regulatory element of each gene and generate CRISPR deletions in cell lines. The rationale for the choice of these particular elements is not clear, nor if the cell lines are the same used for the RNAseq experiments. This information should be explicit in the results and in the methods section.

      The manuscript has been updated to include the rationale behind our choice of the regulatory elements deleted.

      The authors mention that the CRISPR cell lines are "considerably more variable" (Ln 822) compared to the previously studied organoids and suggest that no conclusions can be driven from GFP expression or morphology alone. However, they do not specify which is the variable trait. This information should be added to the text.

      We have amended the text to include that the organoids are more variable in terms of the OV like structures produced and GFP expression level.

      The authors also miss out on specifying the time stage of the organoids in figure 6 which should be stated.

      We thank the reviewer for pointing this out and have updated the manuscript to contain the stage of the organoids.

      Regardless, the wildtype organoids in figure 6 and figure S7 show a very different morphology and GFP expression compared to those in figure 1, suggesting that the conclusions from this last set of experiments are not reliable or comparable to those in figure 1. This, together with the fact that different reagents were used to grow the organoids for the RNAseq and the CRISPR experiments, is a weakness of this work that must be addressed.

      We recognise this weakness however our amendments detailed above in response to reviewer 1’s comments, including adding a figure showing WT organoids grown in the KSR media that closely resemble the organoids in Fig.1A, removes the uncertainty that it is the change in media producing these differences in morphology and GFP expression.

      Our aim in this section was to specifically test the hypotheses regarding the regulatory nature of the distal genomic regions identified by our intra-TAD analyses of ATAC-seq data. To do this it was important to compare organoids derived from wildtype and mutant cells that had been subjected to the same growth conditions and genomic-editing protocols. The stress associated with the latter is what we expect has resulted in the differences in morphology and GFP expression compared with the original Fig1. organoids (which have not been through this procedure).

      The last part of the results section belongs to the discussion as no results generated by the researchers are included.

      Although no new data was generated for this section, we have used the data generated in our work, together with existing ChIP-seq datasets to construct a new plausible hypothesis regarding the activation of Rax-expression through changes in TF-binding at an enhancer displaying little/no change in accessibility. As this section ties in with previous results sections discussing the regulation of eye-field genes, we feel it belongs in the results section rather than in the discussion.

      The discussion in this paper is a good opportunity to state the limitation of this study.

      As requested, we have added a paragraph discussing the main limitations to our study in the discussion section.

      Major comments to address

      1. One of the main issues identified is that the morphology of the control conditions in the CRISPR experiments (Fig.6) do not look is that those used for the RNAseq experiments (Fig.1) and the authors should address this issue. The fact that CDM media was used on the RNA extraction and ATACseq experiments and then KSR media was used for the CRISPR experiments is worrying and makes one wonder whether the second set of experiments is at all comparable to the first. This should be somehow controlled carefully by at least replicating one set of RNA experiments with the KSR media.

      We have addressed this in response to the reviewer’s summary above. Unfortunately, it is not possible for us to replicate the RNA experiments in the KSR media due to the research group closure upon Professor FitzPatrick’s retirement.

      1. The requirement of Wnt signalling inhibition has been well established as a requirement for forebrain specification, including the eye field. Considering the link of the Wnt/beta-catenin pathway to eye specification and that TCFs, the transcription factors that mediate Wnt pathway transcription regulation, have known and well-studied DNA motifs, it is surprising that authors do not include the analysis of TCF motifs in their study. Also considering that TCF7l1 (TCF3, old nomenclature) has recently been shown to be cell-autonomously required for the expression of rx3 (Rax homologue) in zebrafish. One would expect TCFs to be included in the analysis as it was done with Sox2 and Otx2, which were studied due to the known relevance in forebrain specification rather than from the direct analysis of the differential gene expression experiments.

      We thank the referee for their valuable comment here. Our current analyses indeed do not consider TCFs and are therefore likely incomplete. We plan to address this by further analysing our data to quantify the patterns and effects of the TCF genes, and will appropriately amend our manuscript to reflect our findings.

      Minor comments to address

      1. The authors should clearly state the day timepoint used in the organoids experiments in the results section and figure legends, not just in the methods.

      We have updated the text and figure legends to include the time point of all organoids.

      1. The report by Agnes et al Development 2022 should be cited in the introduction as it is an excellent paper related to this topic, including a comprehensive analysis of the EFTFs expression pattern.

      We thank the reviewer for pointing us to this very interesting paper. Although we feel it doesn’t fit in with our introduction that is currently tailored to the set of genes that has historically defined the eye-field (and which was discovered in non-mammalian models), we do recognise that the 3D organisation of the eye-field and in particular the patterns of gene-expression defining different regions of this is important to disentangle in mammalian systems. We have therefore inserted a reference to the Agnes at al 2022 study on the dimorphic teleost in our extended discussion.

      1. Ln 41. Mutations in these genes do not always cause severe bilateral eye malformations. Probably best to moderate and mention that they 'can' cause these malformations.

      As suggested we have softened this sentence to: “ Mutations in at least three of the genes encoding orthologs of the Xenopus EFTF can cause severe bilateral eye malformations in humans (OTX2, PAX6 and RAX) (Fitzpatrick and van Heyningen, 2005).”

      1. Ln 146. Authors mention that in vitro organoid systems "closely mimic the in vitro regulatory dynamics". This statement should be moderated as we do not know if this is true. In fact, one of the positive aspects of this study is that it contributes to supporting this statement.

      We agree with the referee regarding the strength of this original statement. We have changed this to:

      “We have exploited a reproducible, in vitro organoid model system enabling us to generate data from this cell-state transition and through computational analysis gain a quantitative understanding of the underlying regulatory mechanisms.”

      1. Ln 150. Rax homologue Rx3 is also expressed in cells that give rise to the hypothalamus in zebrafish and cavefish, and probably in Xenopus too. It could well be the case in mice too.

      We have corrected this to indicate that Rax is also expressed in the hypothalamus in mice.

      1. I do not think the GO term data adds much to Figure 1. If possible, I would move it to the supplementary section.

      We have moved the GO visualisations to supplementary, Fig.S2.

      1. It should be made clear which set of experiments was performed as biological replicates and which did not.

      We have added details on the number of replicates used in each experiment.

      1. Based on the heatmap in Fig1A, expression of Rax is significant in GFP- cells at days 4 and 5. The authors should comment or discuss this.

      We have amended the text and supplemental methods section to include more details of our FACS protocol. The limitations of our sorting procedure include the fact that cells are not sorted into pure GFP expressing and non-expressing populations. Rather the GFP negative sample may contain some cells with low Rax expression or cells that have just begun to express Rax that were not excluded by our sorting. Our aim was to collect sufficient numbers of cells for each condition and separate out cells that expressed GFP to get a more uniform population of cells to study. It is also of note that the heatmap shows Rax expression by day 3. Although it was not detectable by imaging there were around 100 cells per organoid that FACS marked as GFP positive but were retained within the day 3 sample to ensure we had a complete picture of the gene expression at this time point.

      1. Ln 99 of materials and methods mentions that the sorting of GFP+ was performed "when possible". The authors should state the differences in the conditions in the different experiments.

      This has been expanded to detail exactly how cells were sorted.

      1. The sentence closing the first section of the results (Ln 270) is an overstatement and should be moderated. I cannot see how the results shown in this section on their own could reflect and drive solid conclusions on brain cell fate specification.

      We agree with the referee and have changed this sentence to: “In summary, these first analyses of RNA-seq data generated from the timecourse of optic vesicle organoid development, show that this is a robust and relevant model system with which to study the gene dynamics underlying mammalian eye field specification.”

      1. Appropriate citations should be added to back up the argument that opens the second part of the results section (starting Ln 279).

      We have added several citations that discuss and review the current knowledge regarding gene regulation via TF-binding at accessible cis-regulatory elements.

      1. Ln 342-343. I suggest being consistent and using the EF-up or EF-down nomenclature on the whole manuscript unless referring to a different subset of genes.

      We have modified the text to consistently use “EF-up” or “EF-down” terminology.

      1. Ln 692 Refers to Fig.S4F, but this figure has only panels A-D.

      This was a typo and has been corrected in the text.

      1. Figures 6B and E and the figure legend do not indicate the differences between the panels, or the time stage of the experiments.

      The figure legend has been updated to include these details.

      CROSS-CONSULTATION COMMENTS I agree with the comments and suggestions made by the other two reviewers, which identify similar and also specific issues in the manuscript. I believe they are all pertinent and should be acknowledged before re-submitting.

      Reviewer #2 (Significance (Required)): The manuscript by Owen et al, presents the analysis of in vitro eye vesicle organoids derived from mouse ESCs at stages equivalent to when the eye field is specified in vivo. This work is pertinent and necessary as detailed data on gene expression in early eye organoids was missing in the field and is necessary for the interpretation of experiments in these systems.

      Although the computational data provided in this manuscript is based on consensus TF motifs, the functional relevance of the specific motifs must be proven before being able to drive any significant conclusions, and one should be moderate about the conclusion that can be driven from this kind of analysis. Still, the analysis put forward is a good reference and starting point for future functional studies. One possible limitation of this study is that the quantification of the expression of genes is based on the RNAseq data, and the expression data should be further confirmed using a proper quantitative method like qPCR.

      This study will be of interest to the audience studying eye development and disease in animal model systems and humans.

      My lab studies the genetic, cellular, and molecular aspects of eye specification, development and disease in zebrafish, and study mutations identified patients with eye globe defects.

      Reviewer #3 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      Studies in Xenopus embryos have established that the specification of the eye field requires a core set of transcription factors (TFs) that impose eye identity to anterior neural plate progenitors. In this manuscript the authors have used mouse embryonic stem cells-derived optic vesicle organoid to ask if the acquisition of mammalian eye identity requires the same set of TFs. They further use different genomic approaches to identify the cis-regulatory elements involved in the expression of these genes and analyses the consequences of altering the sequence of some of the identified regulatory elements. Their results confirm that in mammals the acquisition of eye field identity requires the upregulation of the expression of the same core set of TFs described in Xenopus, with a particularly important role for three of them: Rax, Pax6 and Lhx2. This upregulation is associated to the downregulation of pluripotency genes.

      This is a generally well-performed study, that indeed involves a large amount work and adds the identification of several cis-regulatory elements controlling the expression of this core set of already identified eye field TFs. However, conceptually the study does not add much to what is already known and the authors do not offer any very original conclusion from their study. They have generated a large amount of information that likely could allow them to go beyond what is known. For example, they could enlarge the composition of the gene regulatory network that controls eye field specification, given than one of their argument is that their analysis can predict the composition of such a network. Perhaps, they could also address some of the questions that are posed in the discussion. This will strengthen the manuscript and valorize their work.

      Additional points that could be taken into consideration are the following:

      1) According to the text, the authors identify only 53 CREs with decreased chromatin accessibility (ATACseq signal) between the 3 day and 5 days timepoints, versus the 7752 CREs with increased signal. However, this contrasts with the proportion of genes upregulated/ downregulated in their RNAseq analysis (37 vs 448) and with the notion that specification of the eye field involves the concomitant repression of other neural fates. This also suggests that at least an important fraction of the dynamic ATACseq peaks associated with 161 of the 448 downregulated genes increase their accessibility and allow the recruitment of transcriptional repressors. However, the role of TF binding and chromatin accessibility dynamics on gene repression is poorly discussed and the authors need to provide some interpretation of these observations. Also, authors interpret the fact that the presence of BS for EF downregulated genes, such as En2 and GATA6, correlates with increased chromatin accessibility as a consequence of the fact that TFBS can be bound by different TF paralogs but do not seem to consider that these TFs have been reported to work as transcriptional repressors, so that their downregulation could well explain the changes in chromatin accessibility.

      We thank the reviewer for their interesting comments here. We have added short discussions on both main points above (EF-down genes linked to peaks with increasing accessibility and En2/Gata as transcriptional repressors) in the text related to the analysis of our ATAC-seq data. The notion that a loss of repression leading to the activation of gene-expression is indeed a very exciting one and one that we have thought about in the context of the switch-on of the eye-field TFs. This certainly deserves further future work, however in the present study we wanted to be careful not to overinterpret our data. To robustly gain insights into the loss of repression, experiments such as En1/Gata6 ChIP-seq would be very useful, though we are unable to perform these in the near future.

      2) ATACseq signal analysis is an indirect measure of TF binding. The authors demonstrate the predictive nature of this analysis of TF dynamics and have use an available Sox2 ChIP dataset. However, this does not allow assessing dynamic changes in the occupancy of this TF and its correlation with ATACseq. Therefore, at least for few of the TF stressed in this work (e.g. Sox2 and Otx2 and for which good antibodies exist) they could attempt ChIP-seq analysis. This would considerably strengthen the work and provide support to an idea that the authors have particularly emphasized in their manuscript.

      We agree with the referee that not having generated ChIP-seq data does not allow us to validate some of the hypotheses and evidence provided by the computational analysis of our ATAC-seq data – we have added a discussion of this limitation in the discussion section of our manuscript. We do note however, as observed in Bentsen et al, 2020, that compared to simple TF-motif occurrence analyses, TF-footprinting analyses (such as those we have performed) yield results on putative TF binding that are much closer to more direct measurements of TF binding via e.g. ChIP-seq. We fully agree that it would be very interesting to perform ChIP-seq/Cut&Cut experiments on the organoid system for a set of interesting TFs identified in our study. Unfortunately, because the lab of Prof FitzPatrick has now closed, it is not possible for us to perform further wet-lab experiments in the very near future. However, we plan to further explore the literature to try to find additional publicly-available ChIP-seq datasets (including for Otx2) which would help reinforce some of the hypotheses we make, and will report any relevant findings in our final manuscript.

      3) Previous studies (i.e. 10.1242/dev.067660; 10.1093/hmg/ddt562) have shown the importance of gene dosage in eye field specification and repression of other fates. These studies could be included in the discussion, which, in its current version is a quite brief and leaves out many of the reported analysis.

      We thank the referee for pointing us to this very relevant question – we have added this to the further research questions in the discussion.

      CROSS-CONSULATION COMMENTS

      The comments from the other reviewers complement the aspects that we have underscored and should be fully considered as they will contribute to improve the manuscript.

      Reviewer #3 (Significance (Required)): This is a generally well-performed study, that indeed involves a large amount work and adds the identification of several cis-regulatory elements controlling the expression of this core set of already identified eye field TFs. However, conceptually the study does not add much to what is already known and the authors do not offer any very original conclusion from their study. They have generated a large amount of information that likely could allow them to go beyond what is known.

      Developmental neurobiologists, genome

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      Referee #3

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Studies in Xenopus embryos have established that the specification of the eye field requires a core set of transcription factors (TFs) that impose eye identity to anterior neural plate progenitors. In this manuscript the authors have used mouse embryonic stem cells-derived optic vesicle organoid to ask if the acquisition of mammalian eye identity requires the same set of TFs. They further use different genomic approaches to identify the cis-regulatory elements involved in the expression of these genes and analyses the consequences of altering the sequence of some of the identified regulatory elements. Their results confirm that in mammals the acquisition of eye field identity requires the upregulation of the expression of the same core set of TFs described in Xenopus, with a particularly important role for three of them: Rax, Pax6 and Lhx2. This upregulation is associated to the downregulation of pluripotency genes.

      This is a generally well-performed study, that indeed involves a large amount work and adds the identification of several cis-regulatory elements controlling the expression of this core set of already identified eye field TFs. However, conceptually the study does not add much to what is already known and the authors do not offer any very original conclusion from their study. They have generated a large amount of information that likely could allow them to go beyond what is known. For example, they could enlarge the composition of the gene regulatory network that controls eye field specification, given than one of their argument is that their analysis can predict the composition of such a network. Perhaps, they could also address some of the questions that are posed in the discussion. This will strengthen the manuscript and valorize their work. Additional points that could be taken into consideration are the following:

      1. According to the text, the authors identify only 53 CREs with decreased chromatin accessibility (ATACseq signal) between the 3 day and 5 days timepoints, versus the 7752 CREs with increased signal. However, this contrasts with the proportion of genes upregulated/ downregulated in their RNAseq analysis (37 vs 448) and with the notion that specification of the eye field involves the concomitant repression of other neural fates. This also suggests that at least an important fraction of the dynamic ATACseq peaks associated with 161 of the 448 downregulated genes increase their accessibility and allow the recruitment of transcriptional repressors. However, the role of TF binding and chromatin accessibility dynamics on gene repression is poorly discussed and the authors need to provide some interpretation of these observations. Also, authors interpret the fact that the presence of BS for EF downregulated genes, such as En2 and GATA6, correlates with increased chromatin accessibility as a consequence of the fact that TFBS can be bound by different TF paralogs but do not seem to consider that these TFs have been reported to work as transcriptional repressors, so that their downregulation could well explain the changes in chromatin accessibility.
      2. ATACseq signal analysis is an indirect measure of TF binding. The authors demonstrate the predictive nature of this analysis of TF dynamics and have use an available Sox2 ChIP dataset. However, this does not allow assessing dynamic changes in the occupancy of this TF and its correlation with ATACseq. Therefore, at least for few of the TF stressed in this work (e.g. Sox2 and Otx2 and for which good antibodies exist) they could attempt ChIP-seq analysis. This would considerably strenghen the work and provide support to an idea that the authors have particularly emphasized in their manuscript.
      3. Previous studies (i.e. 10.1242/dev.067660; 10.1093/hmg/ddt562) have shown the importance of gene dosage in eye field specification and repression of other fates. These studies could be included in the discussion, which, in its current version is a quite brief and leaves out many of the reported analysis.

      Referees cross-commenting

      The comments from the other reviewers complement the aspects that we have underscored and should be fully considered as they will contribute to improve the manuscript

      Significance

      This is a generally well-performed study, that indeed involves a large amount work and adds the identification of several cis-regulatory elements controlling the expression of this core set of already identified eye field TFs. However, conceptually the study does not add much to what is already known and the authors do not offer any very original conclusion from their study. They have generated a large amount of information that likely could allow them to go beyond what is known.

      Developmental neurobiologists, genome

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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      The authors grow eye organoids from cells with a reporter driving GFP in the Rax locus, a gene that is expressed in the eye field in many animal model systems. They show that expression of GFP picks up by day 4 and performed FACS sorting of GFP+ cells on day 4 and day 5 organoids to compare gene expression by RNAseq comparing with earlier day organoids. The data shows 37 genes with a differential expression on days 4 and 5, compared to day 3, and enriched in GFP+ cells, which they define as EF-up genes. It is notable that some of these genes had already been identified as canonical eye field gene regulatory network transcription factors. In the same way, they identify a group of differentially expressed regulated genes, EF-down, and state that 'many' of them are involved in pluripotency. However, they do not mention how many, or the proportion of these genes in the whole list. It would be useful if they could provide the number to understand how many of these genes are related to pluripotency, the whole list of genes mentioned to be downregulated in a supplementary file. The authors also note that genes known to be required for eye specification like Sox2 and Otx2 are not differentially expressed across the day 3-4 timepoint (Ln 190). However, this is not surprising considering that both genes are broadly expressed in the anterior neural ectoderm and required for its specification, which should be noted by the authors.

      The authors then go on and cluster the EF-up, EF-down and genes deferentially expressed between days 2 and 3, and identify 6 discreet trajectory groups. From this analysis, they identify a third group of genes which shows a peak on day 3 but whose expression falls on days 4 and 5. It is interesting to see that this group includes Wnt and Fgf morphogenes. The authors should provide a list of the genes in the different clusters for the readers to inspect and analyse. Aiming to generate insight into the cis-regulatory elements that regulate of the genes the authors found differentially expressed in their model system they performed a series of ATAC-seq experiments. When linking the genomic regions with differential ATAC-seq accessibility to gene locus using the GREAT analysis, they identified association to 22 of the EF-up and 161 of the EF-down genes. This suggests a functional link between the ATAC-seq genomic regions and the gene regulation of the differentially expressed genes.

      The authors later screened the ATAC-seq regions of increased accessibility for TF binding motifs and found that these regions were enriched with motifs for EFTF gens Rax, Lhx2 and Pax6. When assessing motifs in the ATAC-seq regions in EF-up TADs, Rax and Lhx2 motifs scored highly associated to open chromatin positions. Authors also observe a positive gene expression-accessibility correlation between in Pax6, Lhx2, Six3 and Otx2, and suggest this could mean these genes activate transcription of the EF-up group of genes. The same analysis, but focusing on EF-down genes, suggests that EFTFs repress the expression of EF-down genes which include those involved in pluripotency.

      Further interrogating the ATAC-seq data, the authors use TOBIAS footprinting analysis to identify changes in TF binging in EF-TADs and EF-up motifs. Remarkably, whole genome analysis reveals that the largest increase in motif binging corresponds to EF-up genes Rax, Pax6 and Lhx2. The authors then narrow down on specific gene regulation by studying the ATAC-seq data within the TAD of Rax and Six6. However, they do not explain the rationale for which these two genes were highlighted, and why Pax6 or Lhx2 were excluded. This explanation should be added to the manuscript. The analysis identifies three regulatory elements in the Rax TAD and two for Six6. They then go on and study one putative regulatory element of each gene and generate CRISPR deletions in cell lines. The rationale for the choice of these particular elements is not clear, nor if the cell lines are the same used for the RNAseq experiments. This information should be explicit in the results and in the methods section. The authors mention that the CRISPR cell lines are "considerably more variable" (Ln 822) compared to the previously studied organoids and suggest that no conclusions can be driven from GFP expression or morphology alone. However, they do not specify which is the variable trait. This information should be added to the text. The authors also miss out on specifying the time stage of the organoids in figure 6 which should be stated. Regardless, the wildtype organoids in figure 6 and figure S7 show a very different morphology and GFP expression compared to those in figure 1, suggesting that the conclusions from this last set of experiments are not reliable or comparable to those in figure 1. This, together with the fact that different reagents were used to grow the organoids for the RNAseq and the CRISPR experiments, is a weakness of this work that must be addressed.

      The last part of the results section belongs to the discussion as no results generated by the researchers are included. The discussion in this paper is a good opportunity to state the limitation of this study.

      Major comments to address

      1. One of the main issues identified is that the morphology of the control conditions in the CRISPR experiments (Fig.6) do not look is that those used for the RNAseq experiments (Fig.1) and the authors should address this issue. The fact that CDM media was used on the RNA extraction and ATACseq experiments and then KSR media was used for the CRISPR experiments is worrying and makes one wonder whether the second set of experiments is at all comparable to the first. This should be somehow controlled carefully by at least replicating one set of RNA experiments with the KSR media.
      2. The requirement of Wnt signalling inhibition has been well established as a requirement for forebrain specification, including the eye field. Considering the link of the Wnt/beta-catenin pathway to eye specification and that TCFs, the transcription factors that mediate Wnt pathway transcription regulation, have known and well-studied DNA motifs, it is surprising that authors do not include the analysis of TCF motifs in their study. Also considering that TCF7l1 (TCF3, old nomenclature) has recently been shown to be cell-autonomously required for the expression of rx3 (Rax homologue) in zebrafish. One would expect TCFs to be included in the analysis as it was done with Sox2 and Otx2, which were studied due to the known relevance in forebrain specification rather than from the direct analysis of the differential gene expression experiments.

      Minor comments to address

      1. The authors should clearly state the day timepoint used in the organoids experiments in the results section and figure legends, not just in the methods.
      2. The report by Agnes et al Development 2022 should be cited in the introduction as it is an excellent paper related to this topic, including a comprehensive analysis of the EFTFs expression pattern.
      3. Ln 41. Mutations in these genes do not always cause severe bilateral eye malformations. Probably best to moderate and mention that they 'can' cause these malformations.
      4. Ln 146. Authors mention that in vitro organoid systems "closely mimic the in vitro regulatory dynamics". This statement should be moderated as we do not know if this is true. In fact, one of the positive aspects of this study is that it contributes to supporting this statement.
      5. Ln 150. Rax homologue Rx3 is also expressed in cells that give rise to the hypothalamus in zebrafish and cavefish, and probably in Xenopus too. It could well be the case in mice too.
      6. I do not think the GO term data adds much to Figure 1. If possible, I would move it to the supplementary section.
      7. It should be made clear which set of experiments was performed as biological replicates and which did not.
      8. Based on the heatmap in Fig1A, expression of Rax is significant in GFP- cells at days 4 and 5. The authors should comment or discuss this.
      9. Ln 99 of materials and methods mentions that the sorting of GFP+ was performed "when possible". The authors should state the differences in the conditions in the different experiments.
      10. The sentence closing the first section of the results (Ln 270) is an overstatement and should be moderated. I cannot see how the results shown in this section on their own could reflect and drive solid conclusions on brain cell fate specification.
      11. Appropriate citations should be added to back up the argument that opens the second part of the results section (starting Ln 279).
      12. Ln 342-343. I suggest being consistent and using the EF-up or EF-down nomenclature on the whole manuscript unless referring to a different subset of genes.
      13. Ln 692 Refers to Fig.S4F, but this figure has only panels A-D.
      14. Figures 6B and E and the figure legend do not indicate the differences between the panels, or the time stage of the experiments.

      Referees cross-commenting

      I agree with the comments and suggestions made by the other two reviewers, which identify similar and also specific issues in the manuscript. I believe they are all pertinent and should be acknowledged before re-submitting.

      Significance

      The manuscript by Owen et al, presents the analysis of in vitro eye vesicle organoids derived from mouse ESCs at stages equivalent to when the eye field is specified in vivo. This work is pertinent and necessary as detailed data on gene expression in early eye organoids was missing in the field and is necessary for the interpretation of experiments in these systems.

      Although the computational data provided in this manuscript is based on consensus TF motifs, the functional relevance of the specific motifs must be proven before being able to drive any significant conclusions, and one should be moderate about the conclusion that can be driven from this kind of analysis. Still, the analysis put forward is a good reference and starting point for future functional studies. One possible limitation of this study is that the quantification of the expression of genes is based on the RNAseq data, and the expression data should be further confirmed using a proper quantitative method like qPCR.

      This study will be of interest to the audience studying eye development and disease in animal model systems and humans.

      My lab studies the genetic, cellular, and molecular aspects of eye specification, development and disease in zebrafish, and study mutations identified patients with eye globe defects.

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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary

      Owen et al. characterize the transcriptome and chromatin accessibility of mouse retinal organoids at early stages during which eye field-like cells are specified. Since cell specification and differentiation in retinal organoids largely mimic those processes in vivo, retinal organoids are viable models for studying the mechanisms of early eye development. Owen et al. utilize a previously established Rx-GFP cell line, bulk RNA sequencing, and bulk ATAC sequencing to dissect the mechanisms of early eye development in mice. Their findings are generally consistent with previous studies. Overall, the study is interesting for the field, but its conceptual and technical advances are moderate. In addition, a few major points need to be clarified.

      Major points

      1. The authors did not show any analysis of retinal organoids at stages when Vsx2 is expressed. This is a significant weakness since the chemically defined medium (CDM) used in Owen et al.'s study was previously shown to induce rostral hypothalamic differentiation (Wataya et al., 2008). Related to this notion, several eye-field transcription factors, such as Rax and Six3, are also expressed in the hypothalamus. Therefore, Owen et al. need to demonstrate that organoids in their modified differentiation system efficiently produce Vsx2-positive retinal progenitors, and samples of organoids at stages when Vsx2 is expressed should be included for RNA sequencing. If Vsx2 is not efficiently expressed in their organoids, the interpretation of results will be very different.
      2. The authors state that "two differentiation medias were used for this work due to the differentiation becoming unstable after the initial experiments had been performed. The organoids used for RNA and ATAC-seq were grown in CDM media and the organoids with mutations introduced in potential CREs were grown in KSR media". Why the differentiation becomes unstable after the initial experiments? Differences in the two media cause additional complexities. Related to this notion, "WT Rx-GFP" in Figure 4B and 4E appears to show a different expression pattern compared to that in Figure 1A.
      3. Is the deletion of Rax and Six6 regulatory elements homozygous? Sanger sequencing or amplicon sequencing is needed to show the deletion.
      4. The deletion of Rax and Six6 regulatory elements appears to cause minor changes in the expression of Rax and Six6 (Figure 6C, F). Therefore, the impact of findings in bulk RNA seq and bulk ATAC seq in this study is still unclear.
      5. Retinal organoids and sorted cells are composed of heterogeneous cell populations. Bulk RNA seq and bulk ATAC seq do not have the power to dissect the complexity of heterogeneous cell populations. Single-cell RNA seq and single-cell ATAC seq are more powerful for this study.
      6. Numerous motifs in the JASPAR database are identified using in vitro assays and have not been validated using in vivo assays. Unexpected results in motif analysis could be due to the differences in DNA binding motifs between in vitro and in vivo conditions. This notion should be added in the discussion.

      Minor points

      Numerous labels in figures are too small.

      Referees cross-commenting

      My fellow reviewers identify similar major weaknesses and additional points. I agree with the other reviewers' comments.

      Significance

      Nature and Significance of the advances

      In Owen et al.'s study, the Rx-GFP cell line and retinal differentiation protocol were established in previous studies (Wataya et al., 2008; Eiraku et al., 2011); bulk RNA sequencing and bulk ATAC sequencing are standard procedures. Although candidate regulatory elements for early eye development are identified, deletions of two prioritized elements using CRISPR/Cas9 only cause minor changes in the expression of targeted genes. Overall, conceptual and technical advances in Owen et al.'s study are moderate.

      Compare to existing published knowledge

      The datasets could be useful for the field, but conceptual and technical advances are moderate.

      Audience

      Developmental biologists, stem cell biologists, vision researchers.

      Your expertise

      Developmental biology, stem cell biology, vision research

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      Referee #3

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      The authors have utilised single-cell RNA seq to profile cells in the Drosophila female germline cells and somatic cells within the ovary. Using a candidate approach, the authors assessed whether some of the candidate genes identified in this study play a role in germ cell differentiation. Amongst these, they found that an uncharacterized gene called eggplant is required for differentiation. On rich diets, Eggplant expression is reduced. Furthermore, Mmps and Timp are required to regulate Eggplant expression level.

      Major comments:

      Overall, the conclusions are supported by experimental evidence. The sc-RNA seq provides an important resource for the community, and some of the reagents generated such as the antibody against Eggplant or the tagged lines would provide valuable resource for future studies. The main criticism I have for this manuscript is that it lies half way between a resource paper and a mechanistic paper. If it was just a resource paper, then the sc data should suffice. Instead, the authors studied the effects of Eggplant and MMP/TIMP on GSC differentiation, however, not enough mechanism was gained through these studies.

      1. It is not clear what kind of protein Eggplant is, and its mode of action is unclear, despite that it was shown by the authors that Eggplant is required for GSC differentiation. The authors further showed that animlas fed a high yeast diet promotes GSC proliferation and increased egg production by inhibiting the expression of eggpl. The authors suggested that this may lie downstream of insulin signaling, however no genetic experiments were conducted. In order to support this line of conclusions, essential experiments should include: is there a genetic interaction between Eggplant and insulin signaling? Is this happening autonomously within the GSCs or at the GSC niche? In the discussion the authors mentioned that since egg production can occur upon Eggpl knockdown even on normal diet, thus protein is not involved in this process. So, what is the mechanism?
      2. Similarly, the authors mentioned that MMPs and TIMP are involved in GSC differentiation, and they discussed that it could be mediated via tissue stiffness. However, no experimental data was presented to support this. It would be good to offer some mechanistic insights. TIMP and Eggplant genetic interaction should be done.

      Minor comments:

      Line 376 and Line 437 are repetitive in explaining why the gene is called eggplant. I did not find the pictures in Figure7 F,G and Figure 8 B informative. Some quantifications should also proof the same point.

      Referees cross-commenting

      I also agree with the comments from both reviewers 1 and 2.

      Significance

      • The significance of this study lies in presentation of a thorough characterization of gene expression at the single cell level in the GSC and in identification of novel regulators of GSC differentiation.
      • My field of expertise is Drosophila stem cells and nutrition/metabolism.
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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Brief summary

      The authors conducted single cell RNA sequencing on adult fly ovaries to survey the transcriptomic profile of individual ovarian cells. The datasets resulted in classification of 24 discrete cellular populations, including different types of stem cells, progenitors and differentiated cells. Genes that differentially expressed during germline differentiation were selected and then examined with RNA interference to determine their specific roles in regulating germline differentiation. Meanwhile, using the single cell transcriptomic profiles acquired from specific types of germ cells, gene regulatory networks were further characterized. Among the genes examined, the gene eggplant (eggpl) was found to act as a novel regulator mediating germline differentiation with its protein expression predominantly detected in germline stem cells (GSCs), CBs and early cysts. Interestingly, since the protein expression of Eggplant was decreased upon rich dietary intake, eggpl may function as a novel molecular link coupling the nutritional status and the process of germline differentiation during fly oogenesis.

      Specific comments

      Major points:

      1. The authors chose a specific group of differentially upregulated genes (in GSCs) and performed germline specific RNA interference (RNAi) to determine their function in regulating germline differentiation. The RNAi results were then compiled and presented in Figure 3B-C. However, details shall be provided for the readers/reviewers to understand the phenotypic analyses. Specifically, as stated in text that "we found that RNAi knockdown of 19 upregulated genes induced disruption of GSCs/CB homeostasis. Of these, 12 genes were classified as "changes to the number of CSC/CB", 6 genes as "empty germarium" and 4 genes exhibited "differentiation defects"... ", there was neither specific descriptions nor representative examples (with proper labelling) explaining the bases of such classification. It was particularly difficult to appreciate the assorted phenotypes presented in Figure 3C without proper descriptions. Not to mention that the immunostaining needs to be optimized in some of the representative pictures. Meanwhile, it was not clearly stated in the text about how 19 candidate genes were then classified into (12+6+4=22) genes. Along the same line, it will be helpful to include a supplementary table of summarizing the genes tested and their corresponding phenotypes.
      2. The authors also performed germline specific RNAi to knockdown the expression of 21 out of 39 most highly expressing genes in GSCs to determine their function in regulating oogenesis. Some of the RNAi effects were presented in Figure S2B. Similarly, the effects of RNAi experiments will be better appreciated if some more descriptions on specific RNAi phenotypes are added. Also, inclusion of a supplementary table summarizing the RNAi lines utilized in this experiment is required.
      3. The authors performed in situ hybridization and immunostaining to discover that the eggpl transcripts were enriched in GSCs and CBs (Bam-GFP- germ cells), while the Eggpl::GFP expression (in the knock-in line, KI) was detected throughout region 1 within germarium. The authors then concluded that protein level of Eggpl was "actually highest in cells that have no detectable eggpl transcripts". However, as shown in Figure 5F, the highest level of Eggpl::GFP appeared in the cell that contains a spectrosome, suggesting that is either a GSC or a CB obtaining highest Eggpl::GFP (KI) expression. Furthermore, as shown in Figure 4E, similar level of Eggpl protein expression indicated by immunostaining was found in GSCs and CBs, indicating a nice coupling between the mRNA and protein level of eggpl found in GSCs/CBs. Therefore, the authors need to simultaneously perform in situ hybridization and immunostaining of eggpl to visualize the expression of eggpl transcripts and protein within the same germarium and to directly determine whether the statement that "protein level of Eggpl was actually highest in cells that have no detectable eggpl transcripts" holds true.
      4. The genetic experiments done by the authors show that disruption of eggpl led to an increase in the average number of Brdu+ cysts, the size of the ovary and ultimately the number of eggs produced. Interestingly, such phenotypes were reminiscent to the effects caused by rich dietary intakes. The authors interpret these results by proposing that eggpl negatively regulates GSC proliferation in regulating oogenesis. However, as shown in Figure 5J, the number of GSCs was not significantly altered upon eggpl RNAi but was increased when over-expressing Eggpl::GFP, indicating that eggpl promotes the proliferation of GSCs. To be able to determine the function of eggpl in regulating GSC proliferation during oogenesis and to support the stamen that "We also found that cell cycle in germ cell cysts was accelerated" (in introduction), the authors need to perform clonal analyses to monitor the progression rate of eggpl mutant cells (of both germline clones and follicle cell clones) compared to control cells. An accelerated rate of germline development shall be predicted by increased GSC proliferation. Moreover, to rule out the possibility that changes in the dynamics of germline apoptosis can affect the number of Brdu+ cysts observed upon eggpl loss, the authors should also perform experiments assaying the number of apoptotic cells in the germarium when manipulating the expression level of eggpl.
      5. The authors examined the expression level of Eggpl::GFP (KI) in different feeding conditions and found a reverse correlation between Eggpl::GFP (KI) protein level and the quality of dietary condition. Moreover, the enlarged ovary seen upon eggpl loss was recapitulated when over-expressing Timp and Mmp1/2. Interestingly, the authors also found that overexpression of Timp and Mmp1/2 led to lower protein expression of Eggpl::GFP (KI). The authors interpret these results by proposing that eggpl mediates the GSC differentiation via MMP-dependent Timp regulation pathway. However, the authors should perform experiments to directly examine if eggpl and Timp (and Mmp1/2) interact genetically to regulate GSC proliferation/egg production while monitoring the dietary status.

      Minor points:

      1. Please clarify what you mean in this sentence in the introduction as the message is not clear: "Mei-P26 suppress transcripts that promote differentiation in CB by antagonizing miRNA pathway
      2. In Figure 3B, for the genes that were listed for more than once (CG42250, CG10295, CG6904 and CG15845), please note that those are different RNAi lines.
      3. In Figure S2A, for the genes that were listed for more than once, please note that those are different RNAi lines.
      4. If applicable, more than one RNAi line of each candidate gene should be examined to validate the specific effects caused by gene KD.
      5. As shown in Figure S2B, knocking down CG31666 and CG12743 led to impaired oogenesis. Please add their gene name (CG31666 (chinmo) and CG12743 (otu)) for acknowledging their well-documented role in regulating oogenesis.
      6. How was the RNAi generally performed. Please add into material and method.
      7. In Figure 7A, it is difficult to tell how many of the BrdU+ cysts was shown in Eggpl[1] mutant germarium and whether it is qualitatively/quantitively different from control.
      8. The authors compared their scRNA-Seq dataset with other 4 public available Drosophila ovary scRNA-Seq datasets and concluded that comparable features were found among these datasets by UMAP analysis. The authors should also comment on what are the potential differences among these adult ovary scRNA-Seq datasets in the discussion section. Providing such information will not only highlight the importance of this dataset and will also be beneficial to the fly community for future research.

      Referees cross-commenting

      I also agree with the comments from both reviewers 1 and 3.

      Significance

      In summary, the characterization of single-cell atlas of adult fly ovary from this study adds additional datasets for future investigation on cell-specific differentiation in vivo. Meanwhile, the identification of a novel molecular link between nutritional status and germline differentiation is of broad interest to readers in the field of dietary/metabolic control on stem cell function. However, there are specific concerns about how the results were presented and interpreted while some important controls are missing. I believe this article would be much improved if the points mentioned can be effectively addressed.

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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      In this manuscript, Sun et al. conduct single-cell RNAseq on germline stem cells in the Drosophila ovary to better understand the transcriptional profile of this small, but important, population of stem cells. This resulted in the identification of a subset of genes and gene networks proposed to be involved in early germ cell development and differentiation. A subsequent RNAi screen of these candidate genes indicated that an uncharacterized one (renamed eggplant) was expressed at the transcriptional level in GSCs and at the protein level in the germarium. RNAi-mediated knockdown or CRISPR/Cas9-mediated knockout of eggplant resulted in an accelerated cell cycle in germ cell cysts and flies with overall larger ovaries. These results were not observed, however, when flies were fed a rich yeast-based diet. The authors also draw a connection between the MMP-Timp pathway and the regulation of eggplant in ovarian germ cells. Collectively, the findings presented in this manuscript detail novel modulators of germ cell differentiation and proliferation that are regulated by nutrient availability. While the data presented are intriguing (especially in the first part of the manuscript), there are several major and minor issues that should be addressed prior to publication.

      Major issues:

      1. The bioinformatic analysis of the scRNA-seq data is elegant and well done. However, the data from the follow-up studies on eggplant are mostly observational, correlative, and not convincing. There is little to no mechanism described regarding the function of eggplant. This may be beyond the scope of this paper, but it should at least be addressed in more detail in the Discussion section.
      2. Along the lines of point 1, what is the amino acid sequence of eggplant? What is its predicted molecular weight? Does it contain any predicted domains that may hint at its function in the germarium? The answers to these questions should be included in the manuscript.
      3. There is no validation of the novel eggplant antibody that was generated. This needs to be demonstrated in order to be confident that the antibody is working as expected to interpret the immunofluorescence data.
      4. In Figure 8, the connection between MMPs, TIMPs, and eggplant is very weak. It is unclear how the regulation is occurring. Is it direct or indirect? And by what mechanism? Also need to show representative images to go along with the graphs. But as is, this is the weakest data in the manuscript and needs more clarification.

      Minor issues:

      1. It is unclear what it is being shown in Figure 5M.
      2. In Figure 7B, how was the egg-laying assay performed. This information was not included in the Materials and Methods section.
      3. There are some grammar issues in the Introduction section.

      Referees cross-commenting

      My comments align closely with those of Reviewer #3. I also agree that the specific points raised by Reviewer #2 should be addressed to strengthen the manuscript.

      Significance

      The significance of this work lies in the transcriptional profiling of the Drosophila ovarian germline stem cells. These cells are scarce and are notoriously difficult to isolate and study. This work makes headway in that regard, laying the foundation for future studies, and as mentioned, the bioinformatic analysis of the scRNA-seq data is the strength of the study.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity):

      Summary<br /> Authors show that overexpression of bHLH transcription factor Dpn in the medullary neurons of the Drosophila optic lobe results in the dedifferentiation of these neurons back into the NBs. These dedifferentiated NBs acquire and maintain mid-temporal identity, express Ey and Slp, and show delayed onset of tTF Tailless (Tll), leading to an excess of neurons of mid-temporal fate at the expense of late temporal fate neurons and glial cells. The dedifferentiated NBs are stalled in the cell cycle and fail to undergo terminal differentiation. Over expression of tTF Dicheate (D) or promoting G1/S transition pushed these NBs to late stages of the temporal series, partly rescuing the neuronal diversity and causing their terminal differentiation. They also show that the dedifferentiation of NBs by Notch hyper-activation also exhibited stalled temporal progression, which is restored by D overexpression.<br /> Authors suggest that cell cycle regulation and tTF are primary to the proliferation and termination profile of dedifferentiated NBs.<br /> Using these conclusions, the authors emphasize the need to recreate the right temporal profile and ensure appropriate cell cycle progression to use dedifferentiated NSC for regenerative purposes or prevent tumorigenesis originating from differentiated cell types.

      Major comments:<br /> - Are the key conclusions convincing?<br /> Most conclusions are convincing; however, some issues are pointed out below.

      • Should the authors qualify some of their claims as preliminary or speculative, or remove them altogether?

      The authors have overexpressed Dpn and shown that medulla neurons dedifferentiate to NBs, similar to the loss of function phenotype seen for the Nerfin-1 of which Dpn is a target. They also show that temporal series progression defect is also seen in the case of dedifferentiated NB generated by Notch over-activation.<br /> Using these two examples, the authors suggest that for dedifferentiated NSC, which are to be used for the regenerative purpose, one needs to recreate the right temporal profile and ensure cell cycle progression occurs appropriately. Authors also claim that to prevent tumorigenesis originating from differentiated cell types, one needs to recreate the right temporal profile and ensure cell cycle progression occurs appropriately.

      While I agree with this, I think this is an overreaching conclusion based on just these two examples. If they could show the same for one more method of dedifferentiation (For, e.g. Lola) happening in medulla neurons which happens by a mechanism independent of Nerfin-1, Dpn, Notch axis, the argument will become more convincing and broad.

      We will characterise the temporal identity, termination and cellular identity of Lola-Ri induced ectopic neuroblasts. If these parameters are disrupted, we will overexpress D to assess whether this can trigger the progression of the temporal series.

      Also when authors mention N mediated dedifferentiation, they need to inform that Dpn is a direct target of Notch in NBs (Doi. 10.1016/j.ydbio.2011.01.019), they do so in the discussion, but mentioning it here gives a broader context to the reader.

      We will include that Dpn is a target of Notch when first mentioned.

      Another important point that needs a mentioned here is that conclusions are based on dedifferentiation happening in the medulla neurons, which are considered less stable since they lack Prospero. Therefore whether this conclusion can be generalized for all the tumors arising from dedifferentiation in the CNS (eg, those arising from NICD activation in the central brain or thoracic region of the VNC) is another concern. Maybe authors can consider making a more conservative claim.<br /> Generalizing this conclusion to Prospero expressing NBs lies outside the scope of the current study and cannot be addressed here because central brain Type-I NBs use a different set of tTFs.

      We will make a more conservative claim and clarify all of our conclusion are medulla neuron-specific.

      Would additional experiments be essential to support the claims of the paper? Request additional experiments only where necessary for the paper as it is, and do not ask authors to open new lines of experimentation.<br /> Experiments with Lola knockdown/mutants in medulla neurons can be done quickly, in my opinion, and will substantiate this claim.<br /> Another obvious question that comes to mind is if medulla neurons dedifferentiate on overexpression of Dpn, does the same happen in nerfin-1 mutant clones as well? And if yes, why has the author not done similar experiments for nerfin-1 mutants.

      We will assess the temporal identity of neuroblasts in nerfin-1 mutant clones.

      Please show Ey staining in Fig-2 if possible, it will also help to add a line on why Slp was used as marker for mid tTFs instead of Ey.

      Ey is shown in Fig-2 (D-D’’) already. Slp is used as a marker of mid tTFs as Ey is expressed also in neurons thus would also be present in deep sections of control clones, whereas Slp is not expressed in neurons. We therefore used Slp as a proxy for mid-temporal identity throughout our study. We will include this text in our revision.

      In Model shown in last figure Dpn is shown to repress D and activate Slp. Can authors show that Dpn overexpression represses D and activate Slp either by antibody staining or by RT PCR.

      In Figure 2H, we have shown in clones that overexpression of Dpn induced a significant increase of Slp. In Figure S3B-B’’, we have shown that Dpn overexpression causes an upregulation of Slp at 6 hr APF. We can think we have pretty convincingly shown that Dpn overexpression activates Slp.

      For Dichaete, our existing data shows that Dpn overexpression did not significantly alter D expression. To assess if using a stronger driver might allow us to see some changes, we will induced dedifferentiation via Dpn overexpression using the Eyeless-Gal4 driver. In this experiment, we will quantify the amount of D upon Dpn overexpression. Depending on this result, we will revise our conclusion on whether Dpn overexpression represses D.

      Are the suggested experiments realistic in terms of time and resources? It would help if you could add an estimated cost and time investment for substantial experiments.<br /> Experiments with Lola and nerfin-1 mutants can be done in a few months. I cannot comment on the cost involved.<br /> - Are the data and the methods presented in such a way that they can be reproduced?<br /> Yes

      Are the experiments adequately replicated and statistical analysis adequate?<br /> Replication and statistical analysis are fine. The activated Notch experiments show only three data points in all the experiments. It will be good to increase this number.

      We will repeat Notch experiments to increase the n number for these experiments.

      Minor comments:<br /> - Specific experimental issues that are easily addressable.<br /> There is a problem with Fig-5F (both 5E and 5F have % EdU in clone/ % Mira in the clone as y-axis), I do not understand how the Fig-5F let them conclude that D overexpression increases the rate of neuronal production.

      In the text we said: “We found that D overexpression did not significantly increase neuronal production, suggesting that it is likely that cell cycle progression lies upstream or in parallel to the temporal series, to promote the generation of neurons.”

      In one place, the authors conclude, "Together, this data suggests that it is likely that cell cycle progression lies upstream of the temporal series, to promote the generation of neurons". Authors should consider adding "medulla NBs" at the end of the sentence since cell cycle progression being upstream of temporal series is already known in Type-I NBs, as pointed out by authors as well (Ameele and Brand 2019).

      We will add “medulla NBs” to the end of this sentence.

      In the discussion authors says that "Our data support the possible links between cell cycle progression and the expression of temporal regulators controlling NB proliferation and cellular diversity". This is new information, as the 2019 study did not show how cell diversity changes with a changed tTF profile. I think the authors should elaborate on this point to highlight how this is different from what is already known from the 2019 study (done in the context of Type-I NBs).<br /> Maybe they need to highlight that the cell cycle directs/regulates the progression of temporal series compared to the earlier observation where temporal series was shown to be downstream of the cell cycle.

      We will expand in discussion to discuss the link between cell cycle/tTFs.

      In fig-3J in clones even after 24 AHS, Dpn continues to be overexpressed but these cells undergo terminal differentiation, can authors comment why is it so?<br /> In one place authors say, "To better assess the cumulative effect of the neurons made throughout development, EyOK107-GAL4 was used to drive the expression of Dpn" maybe some background on why use this specific GAL4.<br /> Also a line about why GMR31HI08-GAL4 eyOK107-GAL4 and and eyR16F10-GAL4 were used.

      While Dpn is overexpressed, it progresses through the temporal series at a slower pace due to a delay in cell cycle progression, as well as delayed onset of D, these NBs still eventually reach the terminal temporal identity, and are thus about to undergo terminal differentiation. We will include an additional piece of data that shows NBs induced by Dpn overexpression do eventually turn on Tll.

      Are prior studies referenced appropriately ?<br /> Yes, but in a few places, some references can be added.<br /> An important point that needs to be mentioned for the context is the medulla neurons do not use Prospero for terminal differentiation and are thus considered less stable (DOI: 10.1242/dev.14134

      We beg to disagree with the reviewer in terms of Pros is not required for terminal differentiation of medulla neuroblasts. Li et al., 2013 shows that nuclear Pros is found in the oldest NBs. We do agree that differentiated state of medulla neurons is less stable, possibly owing to absence of Pros, and we will include that in our discussion.

      In discussion, the authors say that "It would be interesting to explore whether N similarly acts on these target genes to specify cell fate and proliferation profiles of dedifferentiated NBs." There is a study looking at Notch targets in NB hyperplasia (DOI: 10.1242/dev.126326); whether that study shows if any of the cell cycle genes are downstream of activated Notch, needs a mention here.<br /> Also, when authors mention N mediated dedifferentiation, they need to inform that Dpn is a direct target of Notch in NBs (Doi. 10.1016/j.ydbio.2011.01.019). They do so in the discussion, but mentioning it in the introduction or results will give a broader context to the reader.

      We will discuss the study looking at N targets in NB hyperplasia in the discussion of the revised manuscript.

      We will mention that Dpn is a target of Notch in the results section.

      Another gene that needs a mention is "Brat", which regulates both Dpn and Notch, and causes dedifferentiation and tumors in CNS, I think this gene and its interaction with Dpn and Nerfin and Notch needs to be discussed either in the introduction or discussion.

      We will comment on Brat in the discussion.

      Are the text and figures clear and accurate?<br /> The main figures are not labeled. Therefore, it was very annoying to deduce the specific figure numbers.<br /> There are 1 or 2 places where figure calling is wrong in the text.<br /> The Image Fig-5I shows cycD and CDK4 at the G2-M transition; while the text says it supports G1/S, which is indeed the case, the figure needs modification.

      We thank the reviewers for identifying these mistakes, and will correct them.

      Do you have suggestions that would help the authors improve the presentation of their data and conclusions?<br /> The presentation is okay, in my opinion.

      Reviewer #1 (Significance):

      • Describe the nature and significance of the advance (e.g. conceptual, technical, clinical) for the field.

      The factors leading to dedifferentiation of the neurons have been identified previously by groups of Chris Doe (mldc, DOI: 10.1242/dev.093781), Andrea brand (10.1016/j.devcel.2014.01.030.) as well as the authors of this paper (10.1101/gad.250282.114, 10.1016/j.celrep.2018.10.038.). However, many questions remained unaddressed regarding such NB generated from neuronal dedifferentiation. For example, whether these cells contribute to native cell diversity of the CNS, undergo timely differentiation or their progeny cells incorporated into appropriate circuits is not well understood. Successful execution of these phenomena is critical for generating functional CNS and such insights are crucial for understanding the origin of tumorigenesis in CNS or employing dedifferentiated NSC for regenerative purposes.

      This study is an overexpression-based study, however, some of the results give significant conceptual insights into the tumors arising out of the dedifferentiation of the neurons. It also gives insights into the fact that the dedifferentiated cells need to be carefully examined for the temporal factor profile before they can be employed for regeneration or any therapy targeting them.<br /> However, in my opinion, they need to test this idea at least in one more system of neuronal dedifferentiation, preferably independent of the nerfin-1/Notch/Dpn axis to generalize this claim.

      • Place the work in the context of the existing literature (provide references, where appropriate).<br /> Cerdic Maurange's group had looked at the role of temporal factors and identified the early phase of malignant susceptibility in Drosophila in 2016 (doi: 10.7554/eLife.13463). Andrea Brand's group has shown in a 2019 paper that cell cycle progression is essential for temporal transition in NBs (doi: 10.7554/eLife.47887). Both these studies were in the context of Type-I NBs, which express Prospero, which is crucial for the differentiation of the neurons.<br /> Previously the authors have studied type-I NBs and shown by Targeted DamID that Dpn is Nerfin-1 target. They also show that Nerfin-1 mutants show dedifferentiation of neurons. They follow up on this observation in medulla neurons, where they find that Dpn overexpression results in their dedifferentiation into medulla NBs. Medulla NBs differ from Type-I NBs in using a separate set of tTFs. Also, Type-I NB and neurons arising from them use Prospero for terminal differentiation, while medulla neurons do not express Prospero and are therefore considered less stable (DOI: 10.1242/dev.141341).

      The importance of the study lies in the results that show that the NB arising out of dedifferentiation of medulla neurons takes up mid-temporal fate. These NBs are stalled in Slp expressing mid-temporal stage unless the cell cycle is promoted by overexpression of cell cycle genes regulating G1/S transition.<br /> Authors also show that overexpression of D promotes the progression of temporal series in these dedifferentiated NBs, which could partly rescue neuronal diversity and result in terminal differentiation. Thus D plays an important role in determining the type of neurons these NBs generated. This suggests that knowing the tTF profile of these types of dedifferentiated NBs is vital if these cells were to be used for regenerative purposes. Authors further claimed that cell cycle regulation and tTFs are critical determinants of the proliferation and termination profile of dedifferentiated NBs.

      • State what audience might be interested in and influenced by the reported findings.<br /> The study will be of broader interest to researchers interested in central nervous system patterning, regeneration, and cancer biology.

      • Define your field of expertise with a few keywords to help the authors contextualize your point of view. Indicate if there are any parts of the paper that you do not have sufficient expertise to evaluate.<br /> Drosophila, central nervous system patterning and cell fate determination of neural stem cells.

      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity):

      Stem cells can divide asymmetrically to self-renew the stem cell while generating differentiating sibling cells. To restrict the number and type of differentiating sibling cells, stem cells often undergo terminal differentiation. Terminally differentiated cells can dedifferentiate and revert to a stem cell like fate. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms are incompletely understood in vivo.<br /> Here, Veen et al., use Drosophila neural stem cells (called neuroblasts) to investigate how terminal differentiation is regulated. Neuroblasts faithfully produce the correct number and type of neuronal cells through temporal patterning and regulated terminal differentiation. The authors show that misexpression of the bHLH transcription factor Deadpan (Dpn) induces ectopic neuroblasts, which predominantly express mid-temporal transcription factors at the expense of late-temporal transcription factors. As a consequence, these ectopic neuroblasts also fail to produce Repo positive glial cells and are stalled in their cell cycle progression. The authors provide evidence that promoting cell cycle progression and overexpression of the transcription factor Dichaete (D) is sufficient to restore the temporal transcription factor series, neuronal diversity and timely neuroblast differentiation.

      This is an interesting study that will be of interest to the stem cell field. However, I encourage the authors to consider the following critiques:

      1. Explain the rationale for the three different neuronal/NB drivers (GMR31HI08-GAL4, eyOK107-GAL4, eyR16F10-GAL4. How are they expressed?

      We will include an expression analysis of EyOK107-GAL4 and eyR16F10-GAL4. GMR31HI08-GAL4 expression analysis was previously published (Vissers et al., 2018). We will explain in the text the benefits of each driver.

      1. The rationale for the Edu experiment (Figure S1I) is not clear. Why is this a measure for the production of neuronal progeny? For the correct interpretation of these results, the authors should also provide control clones or Edu experiments of regular neuroblasts.

      We will repeat this experiment and mark the progeny with the neuronal marker Elav, to demonstrate that they are neurons. Additionally, we will add the control to this figure.

      1. How was % of Mira (Figure 1K and below) or the % of tTFs (Figure 2H onward) quantified? For instance, Figure 2C-G often shows clonal signal that is not highlighted with the dashed lines and the corresponding tTF intensity does not match the intensity in the outlined clone (eg. Figure 2D-D'; a large optic lobe clone is negative for Ey. Figure 2E-E'; an unmarked clone is negative for Slp).<br /> Similarly, the Hth signal is very weak to begin with so it is unclear how this was quantified. How was determined what constitutes real signal vs. background noise?<br /> Additional explanations in the methods section is needed to assess the robustness of the data.

      We will expand the methods section and mention that we used similar thresholding in antibody staining between control and uas dpn in all instances, so even if the antibody is weaker (eg hth) it is consistently quantified. Additionally, we can increase the intensity of Ey in Figure 2D-2D’, as it is expressed at low levels.

      1. This sentence should be rephrased: 'As the tumour cell-of-origin can define the competence of tumour NBs to undergo malignancy (Farnsworth et al., 2015; Narbonne-Reveau et al., 2016), we next tested whether the temporal identity of the dedifferentiated NBs were conferred by the age of the neurons they were derived from.'<br /> The connection between tumorigenicity and temporal identity is not really clear and should be briefly reintroduced for this paragraph.

      We will rephrase this sentence and further introduce this concept when talking about tumour cell of origin and competence.

      1. Figure 2I-N: The experimental outline in I and J should be grouped with the corresponding images to clarify what is compared. Also, there are no images for the control clones, which make a comparison difficult. The images are also too small. I cannot really see the Hth, or Slp signal in the small clones shown in Figure 2K-L".

      We will split figure 2 into two images. The first image including A-H and the control data. And the second including I-Q and the control data. This will increase the size of the images. Additionally, we will group I and J with corresponding data.

      1. Figure 3H: It is not clear why there are only a small group of Nbs that are positive for Mira. Please explain.

      Most NBs have terminated by this time point, we will explain this within the text.

      1. Figure 3K-M: Please explain how the Toy signal was measured and quantified.

      We will expand the methods section and explain how Toy quantification is made.

      1. The TaDa data set is very interesting but the following might be an overstatement: "We found that Dpn directly binds to slp1 as well as the Sox-family TF dichaete (D) which is expressed in medulla NBs after slp1 (Li et al., 2013) (Figure S6 A-B)."<br /> More direct binding assays might be needed to show that Dpn directly binds to slp1 and D. If this is already shown, clarify the sentence to indicate what is published and what is extracted from the data shown here.<br /> Also, what is the rationale for this statement: "Consistent with the model that D represses Slp-1..."?

      The DamID data do actually show that Dpn binds (i.e. there is a statistically significant peak at FDR<0.01) directly at these loci (see the TaDa supp fig A & B). Whether it’s doing anything functional or not, we can’t say, but our data shows that Dpn directly binds to slp1 and D. We will clarify the sentence to indicate this in our revision.

      1. This might be an overinterpretation: D overexpression in UAS-Dpn NBs promoted their pre-mature cell cycle exit at 6 hrs APF using eyR16F10-GAL4. The data shows loss of Mira signal, which could occur through different mechanisms.

      Our data already shows that these NBs express Tll, the terminal temporal transcription factor (Figure 4F). In addition, we show that there is an increase in Tll+ and Repo+ progeny (Figure 4K, L). Together, this suggests that D overexpression promotes the progression of the temporal series. However, it is possible that Mira+ cells can disappear via cell death. We will assess this possibility by staining for cell death marker Dcp1 at 6hr APF.

      Reviewer #2 (Significance):

      These appear to be novel and significant findings that will enhance our understanding of the temporal progression and terminal differentiation program of neural stem cells in vivo.<br /> I think the findings will be of interest to cell, developmental cell and stem cell biologists.

      My primary expertise is in the cell biology of fly neural stem cells and asymmetric cell division of neuroblasts. Although I am not intimately familiar with the differentiation and differentiation literature, I consider the findings reported here relevant and impactful.

      Reviewer #3 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity):

      The discoveries that the author describe in this manuscript are very specific to dedifferentiated neuroblasts created by UAS-dpn transgene overexpression. Dpn is endogenously expressed in optic lobe neuroblast throughout larval stage, which makes understanding how Dpn regulates gene expression based on the authors results (suppression of cell-cycle genes, and promotion of a specific temporal state) confusing.

      Our data relate specifically to gene regulation by Dpn in a dedifferentiated context, and do not seek to understand Dpn regulation in wt neuroblasts. The reviewer is assuming our scope is greater here: we’re not trying to claim that we know what Dpn is doing in wt NBs, and it’s not surprising that ectopic effects in neurons may be different to wt NBs.

      To assess whether the mechanisms described apply to more than Dpn overexpression, we will also assess whether the temporal series progression is affected in Lola RNAi and Nerfin-1 mutant.

      Therefore, this manuscript does not advance our understanding of regulation of temporal identity and cell cycle progression in optic lobe neuroblasts during normal neurogenesis.<br /> The author's state:<br /> "However, beyond the fact that misexpression of these factors and pathways caused the formation of ectopic NBs, whether these dedifferentiated NBs faithfully produce the correct number and types of neurons or glial cells, or undergo timely terminal differentiation, has not been assessed. These characteristics are key determinants of overall CNS size and function, thus are important parameters when considering whether dedifferentiation leads to tumourigenesis or can be appropriately utilized for regenerative purposes."<br /> at the end of introduction. If this is a true primary goal of this study, the authors should describe it in abstract. Otherwise, readers will lose enthusiasm to read this manuscript in abstract and no longer read the following sections.

      We will add this to the abstract.

      Results<br /> 1. The authors should describe the expression pattern of all three of the Gal4 drivers used. While there are dotted outlines in the supplemental figure, there should be a description in the main text for the expression pattern of these lines which described with temporal state of NBs these lines are expressed in, and whether they are also expressed in the neurons or not.

      We will include expression analysis of all three drivers in a supplementary figure and explain in the text the benefit of each driver.

      1. The authors claim that overexpression of Dpn in the medulla region causes "dedifferentiation." The data provided however is not sufficient to conclude that dedifferentiation is occurring. The GAL4s used all drive in the NBs, and so it is unclear if the ectopic NBs ever became mature neurons. In addition, the lack of ectopic NBs in the clonal analysis 16hrs AHS does not prove that ectopic NBs at 24hrs AHS must have come from "mature neurons." To demonstrate dedifferentiation, the authors should use a driver system that is specific to mature neurons, and then overexpress dpn and look for mira+ cells. Currently, the authors data does not prove that mature neurons dedifferentiatiate into ectopic NBs upon Dpn OE.

      We have conducted lineage tracing (G-Trace) analysis of the medulla neuron driver GMR31H08-GAL4 which we utilise in our study, this driver is predominantly expressed within the medulla neurons (real time) except for a few GMCs present in the lineage. Therefore, the Mira positive cells induced via Dpn overexpression are most likely from dedifferentiation (We will include this data in a supplemental figure in our revised manuscript).

      To further support this, we will use GMR31H08-GAL4 with a Gal80ts, to restrict the timing to dedifferentiation induction to 3rd instar, so that the driver is restricted to neurons. Similar strategy to induce dedifferentiation was utilised in DOI: 10.1242/dev.141341 and DOI: 10.1016/j.devcel.2014.01.030.

      1. What is a conclusion of fig 2C-H?

      Fig 2C-H assess the expression of tTFs in UAS-dpn induced ectopic NBs. We will make these conclusions clearer in the text.

      1. "As the tumor cell-of-origin can define the competence of tumor NBs to undergo malignancy identity of the dedifferentiated NBs were conferred by the age of the neurons they were derived from". This sentence is confusing. What are the authors investigating in the following experiment? Do they want to see ectopic NBs keep their early identity like Chinmo in ventral cord tumor NB? Or tll-positive NB's progenies can dedifferentiate to ectopic NB, but this ectopic neuroblast is not able to keep proliferation in pupal stage? It is hard to understand the connection of this sentence and the following experiment.

      We will rephrase this sentence and further introduce this concept when talking about tumour cell of origin and competence. Additionally, we will make the connection to the experiments which follow it clearer.

      1. The DamID experiment described used wor-gal4 as a driver, which means the Dpn binding profile generated is coming from not only optic lobe NBs, but central brain NBs and VNC NBs as well. In Magadi et al. (2020), the authors profiled Dpn binding in CNS hyperplasia, and found that dpn strongly bound Nerfin-1 and gcm. However, it does not bind cell cycle genes in this context. How do the authors know that the region that they claim are bound by dpn are bound in medulla NBs? The authors should also include tracks to show dpn binding at Nerfin-1, as well as the other tTFs (hth, ey, tll, and gcm). Providing this data will help to understand if Dpn binding is specific to the mid-temporal genes, as Dpn expression is known to be expressed in all medulla NBs regardless of temporal state.

      We agree with the reviewer that the profile is not specific to medulla NBs. To assess Dpn binding profiles specifically in the medulla NBs, we will use the recently-published NanoDam technique (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.devcel.2022.04.008) for profiling GFP-fusion proteins, with a medulla specific driver (eyR16F10-GAL4) and Dpn-GFP (recombineered locus under endogenous control). This should inform us whether the target genes we have identified are relevant in the medulla.

      We will include the tracks of the other transcription factors.

      1. Currently, the DamID data does not help to interpret the Dpn overexpression phenotype at all. Inside of flip-out clone, some cells show Slp-1 expression while others showed D expression. The authors explain that Slp-1 and D suppress their expression to each other. But the DamID data indicate that both Slp-1 and D are Dpn target genes. If this is true, why did they observe the mosaic expression pattern inside of the same clone.

      We observed that high levels of Slp-1 is correlated with low levels of D. This suggest to us that the initial stochastic differences accounts for where Slp-1 is high is where D is low, and vice versa.

      1. The authors hypothesized if Dpn activated Slp-1directly. Does this mean that Dpn directly activate transcription of Slp-1? It is well known that Dpn is transcriptional repressor. Hes family proteins form a homodimer or heterodimer with another Hes protein and interacts Gro, which recruits a Histon deacetylase protein. The author's claim does not fit to the model what we currently believe. In addition, the authors claimed that Dpn inhibits cell cycle gene transcription directly. This is inconsistent to their claim that Dpn directly activate Slp-1 expression. If the authors want to claim that Dpn has two different functions in this context, the authors must demonstrate it by experimental results.

      We will discuss these models in the Discussion, and make our claims more conservative, as we do not have direct experimental evidence to prove or disprove the model that Dpn is acting as an activator in this context.

      1. Related to the above question, I wondered if the authors guess Dpn activate or repress D transcription by binding to D promoter region because they claimed that Dpn activate Slp-1, while suppress cell cycle genes.

      We will make our claims more conservative, and discuss this point further in the Discussion.

      1. I am confused to the claim that Dpn suppress cell cycle genes expression. Dpn overexpression induces dedifferentiation of neuron into NB and re-entry into the cell cycle. If Dpn suppress cell cycle genes how can the dedifferentiated cell re-enter into the cell cycle?

      The data points towards that Dpn overexpression has two separate roles in regulating the cell cycle. Ofcourse dedifferentiation requires a commitment of neurons into the cell cycle (this we think is still happening), however, we think once these cells have turned on NB markers, they have limited ability to progress through the cell cycle. We will discuss this point in the Discussion.

      1. Figure 6 looked redundant because we know Dpn is a direct target of Notch. It is obvious that an upstream factor overexpression can induce the identical phenotype to the phenotype induced by overexpression of a downstream factor.

      A direct target does not necessarily infer the same phenotype. To assess whether the mechanisms apply to other dedifferentiation models, we will add Lola-RNAi and Nerfin-1 data to our revised manuscript.

      Minor comments:<br /> 1. Typo in main text: "GMR31HI08-GAL4" should be "GMR31H08-GAL4"<br /> 2. In figure 1E-H the dotted line regions indicated the clones are not shown in the merge image. Please include<br /> 3. Typo in discussion paragraph 2: "temporal series was no sufficient to rescue cycle cycle progression"

      We will correct these typos.

      Reviewer #3 (Significance):

      Insights into the developmental capacity of dedifferentiated stem cells will likely lead to novel strategy to replenish cells lost due to aging, injury and diseases in regenerative medicine.

    2. Note: This preprint has been reviewed by subject experts for Review Commons. Content has not been altered except for formatting.

      Learn more at Review Commons


      Referee #3

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      The discoveries that the author describe in this manuscript are very specific to dedifferentiated neuroblasts created by UAS-dpn transgene overexpression. Dpn is endogenously expressed in optic lobe neuroblast throughout larval stage, which makes understanding how Dpn regulates gene expression based on the authors results (suppression of cell-cycle genes, and promotion of a specific temporal state) confusing. Therefore, this manuscript does not advance our understanding of regulation of temporal identity and cell cycle progression in optic lobe neuroblasts during normal neurogenesis.

      The author's state:

      "However, beyond the fact that misexpression of these factors and pathways caused the formation of ectopic NBs, whether these dedifferentiated NBs faithfully produce the correct number and types of neurons or glial cells, or undergo timely terminal differentiation, has not been assessed. These characteristics are key determinants of overall CNS size and function, thus are important parameters when considering whether dedifferentiation leads to tumourigenesis or can be appropriately utilized for regenerative purposes."<br /> at the end of introduction. If this is a true primary goal of this study, the authors should describe it in abstract. Otherwise, readers will lose enthusiasm to read this manuscript in abstract and no longer read the following sections.

      Results

      1. The authors should describe the expression pattern of all three of the Gal4 drivers used. While there are dotted outlines in the supplemental figure, there should be a description in the main text for the expression pattern of these lines which described with temporal state of NBs these lines are expressed in, and whether they are also expressed in the neurons or not.
      2. The authors claim that overexpression of Dpn in the medulla region causes "dedifferentiation." The data provided however is not sufficient to conclude that dedifferentiation is occurring. The GAL4s used all drive in the NBs, and so it is unclear if the ectopic NBs ever became mature neurons. In addition, the lack of ectopic NBs in the clonal analysis 16hrs AHS does not prove that ectopic NBs at 24hrs AHS must have come from "mature neurons." To demonstrate dedifferentiation, the authors should use a driver system that is specific to mature neurons, and then overexpress dpn and look for mira+ cells. Currently, the authors data does not prove that mature neurons dedifferentiatiate into ectopic NBs upon Dpn OE.
      3. What is a conclusion of fig 2C-H?
      4. "As the tumor cell-of-origin can define the competence of tumor NBs to undergo malignancy identity of the dedifferentiated NBs were conferred by the age of the neurons they were derived from". This sentence is confusing. What are the authors investigating in the following experiment? Do they want to see ectopic NBs keep their early identity like Chinmo in ventral cord tumor NB? Or tll-positive NB's progenies can dedifferentiate to ectopic NB, but this ectopic neuroblast is not able to keep proliferation in pupal stage? It is hard to understand the connection of this sentence and the following experiment.
      5. The DamID experiment described used wor-gal4 as a driver, which means the Dpn binding profile generated is coming from not only optic lobe NBs, but central brain NBs and VNC NBs as well. In Magadi et al. (2020), the authors profiled Dpn binding in CNS hyperplasia, and found that dpn strongly bound Nerfin-1 and gcm. However, it does not bind cell cycle genes in this context. How do the authors know that the region that they claim are bound by dpn are bound in medulla NBs? The authors should also include tracks to show dpn binding at Nerfin-1, as well as the other tTFs (hth, ey, tll, and gcm). Providing this data will help to understand if Dpn binding is specific to the mid-temporal genes, as Dpn expression is known to be expressed in all medulla NBs regardless of temporal state.
      6. Currently, the DamID data does not help to interpret the Dpn overexpression phenotype at all. Inside of flip-out clone, some cells show Slp-1 expression while others showed D expression. The authors explain that Slp-1 and D suppress their expression to each other. But the DamID data indicate that both Slp-1 and D are Dpn target genes. If this is true, why did they observe the mosaic expression pattern inside of the same clone.
      7. The authors hypothesized if Dpn activated Slp-1directly. Does this mean that Dpn directly activate transcription of Slp-1? It is well known that Dpn is transcriptional repressor. Hes family proteins form a homodimer or heterodimer with another Hes protein and interacts Gro, which recruits a Histon deacetylase protein. The author's claim does not fit to the model what we currently believe. In addition, the authors claimed that Dpn inhibits cell cycle gene transcription directly. This is inconsistent to their claim that Dpn directly activate Slp-1 expression. If the authors want to claim that Dpn has two different functions in this context, the authors must demonstrate it by experimental results.
      8. Related to the above question, I wondered if the authors guess Dpn activate or repress D transcription by binding to D promoter region because they claimed that Dpn activate Slp-1, while suppress cell cycle genes.
      9. I am confused to the claim that Dpn suppress cell cycle genes expression. Dpn overexpression induces dedifferentiation of neuron into NB and re-entry into the cell cycle. If Dpn suppress cell cycle genes how can the dedifferentiated cell re-enter into the cell cycle?
      10. Figure 6 looked redundant because we know Dpn is a direct target of Notch. It is obvious that an upstream factor overexpression can induce the identical phenotype to the phenotype induced by overexpression of a downstream factor.

      Minor comments:

      1. Typo in main text: "GMR31HI08-GAL4" should be "GMR31H08-GAL4"
      2. In figure 1E-H the dotted line regions indicated the clones are not shown in the merge image. Please include
      3. Typo in discussion paragraph 2: "temporal series was no sufficient to rescue cycle cycle progression"

      Significance

      Insights into the developmental capacity of dedifferentiated stem cells will likely lead to novel strategy to replenish cells lost due to aging, injury and diseases in regenerative medicine.

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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Stem cells can divide asymmetrically to self-renew the stem cell while generating differentiating sibling cells. To restrict the number and type of differentiating sibling cells, stem cells often undergo terminal differentiation. Terminally differentiated cells can dedifferentiate and revert to a stem cell like fate. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms are incompletely understood in vivo.<br /> Here, Veen et al., use Drosophila neural stem cells (called neuroblasts) to investigate how terminal differentiation is regulated. Neuroblasts faithfully produce the correct number and type of neuronal cells through temporal patterning and regulated terminal differentiation. The authors show that misexpression of the bHLH transcription factor Deadpan (Dpn) induces ectopic neuroblasts, which predominantly express mid-temporal transcription factors at the expense of late-temporal transcription factors. As a consequence, these ectopic neuroblasts also fail to produce Repo positive glial cells and are stalled in their cell cycle progression. The authors provide evidence that promoting cell cycle progression and overexpression of the transcription factor Dichaete (D) is sufficient to restore the temporal transcription factor series, neuronal diversity and timely neuroblast differentiation.

      This is an interesting study that will be of interest to the stem cell field. However, I encourage the authors to consider the following critiques:

      1. Explain the rationale for the three different neuronal/NB drivers (GMR31HI08-GAL4, eyOK107-GAL4, eyR16F10-GAL4. How are they expressed?
      2. The rationale for the Edu experiment (Figure S1I) is not clear. Why is this a measure for the production of neuronal progeny? For the correct interpretation of these results, the authors should also provide control clones or Edu experiments of regular neuroblasts.
      3. How was % of Mira (Figure 1K and below) or the % of tTFs (Figure 2H onward) quantified? For instance, Figure 2C-G often shows clonal signal that is not highlighted with the dashed lines and the corresponding tTF intensity does not match the intensity in the outlined clone (eg. Figure 2D-D'; a large optic lobe clone is negative for Ey. Figure 2E-E'; an unmarked clone is negative for Slp).<br /> Similarly, the Hth signal is very weak to begin with so it is unclear how this was quantified. How was determined what constitutes real signal vs. background noise?<br /> Additional explanations in the methods section is needed to assess the robustness of the data.
      4. This sentence should be rephrased: 'As the tumour cell-of-origin can define the competence of tumour NBs to undergo malignancy (Farnsworth et al., 2015; Narbonne-Reveau et al., 2016), we next tested whether the temporal identity of the dedifferentiated NBs were conferred by the age of the neurons they were derived from.'<br /> The connection between tumorigenicity and temporal identity is not really clear and should be briefly reintroduced for this paragraph.
      5. Figure 2I-N: The experimental outline in I and J should be grouped with the corresponding images to clarify what is compared. Also, there are no images for the control clones, which make a comparison difficult. The images are also too small. I cannot really see the Hth, or Slp signal in the small clones shown in Figure 2K-L".
      6. Figure 3H: It is not clear why there are only a small group of Nbs that are positive for Mira. Please explain.
      7. Figure 3K-M: Please explain how the Toy signal was measured and quantified.
      8. The TaDa data set is very interesting but the following might be an overstatement: "We found that Dpn directly binds to slp1 as well as the Sox-family TF dichaete (D) which is expressed in medulla NBs after slp1 (Li et al., 2013) (Figure S6 A-B)."<br /> More direct binding assays might be needed to show that Dpn directly binds to slp1 and D. If this is already shown, clarify the sentence to indicate what is published and what is extracted from the data shown here.<br /> Also, what is the rationale for this statement: "Consistent with the model that D represses Slp-1..."?
      9. This might be an overinterpretation: D overexpression in UAS-Dpn NBs promoted their pre-mature cell cycle exit at 6 hrs APF using eyR16F10-GAL4. The data shows loss of Mira signal, which could occur through different mechanisms.

      Significance

      These appear to be novel and significant findings that will enhance our understanding of the temporal progression and terminal differentiation program of neural stem cells in vivo.<br /> I think the findings will be of interest to cell, developmental cell and stem cell biologists.

      My primary expertise is in the cell biology of fly neural stem cells and asymmetric cell division of neuroblasts. Although I am not intimately familiar with the differentiation and differentiation literature, I consider the findings reported here relevant and impactful.

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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary

      Authors show that overexpression of bHLH transcription factor Dpn in the medullary neurons of the Drosophila optic lobe results in the dedifferentiation of these neurons back into the NBs. These dedifferentiated NBs acquire and maintain mid-temporal identity, express Ey and Slp, and show delayed onset of tTF Tailless (Tll), leading to an excess of neurons of mid-temporal fate at the expense of late temporal fate neurons and glial cells. The dedifferentiated NBs are stalled in the cell cycle and fail to undergo terminal differentiation. Over expression of tTF Dicheate (D) or promoting G1/S transition pushed these NBs to late stages of the temporal series, partly rescuing the neuronal diversity and causing their terminal differentiation. They also show that the dedifferentiation of NBs by Notch hyper-activation also exhibited stalled temporal progression, which is restored by D overexpression.<br /> Authors suggest that cell cycle regulation and tTF are primary to the proliferation and termination profile of dedifferentiated NBs.<br /> Using these conclusions, the authors emphasize the need to recreate the right temporal profile and ensure appropriate cell cycle progression to use dedifferentiated NSC for regenerative purposes or prevent tumorigenesis originating from differentiated cell types.

      Major comments:

      • Are the key conclusions convincing?

      Most conclusions are convincing; however, some issues are pointed out below.<br /> - Should the authors qualify some of their claims as preliminary or speculative, or remove them altogether?

      The authors have overexpressed Dpn and shown that medulla neurons dedifferentiate to NBs, similar to the loss of function phenotype seen for the Nerfin-1 of which Dpn is a target. They also show that temporal series progression defect is also seen in the case of dedifferentiated NB generated by Notch over-activation.<br /> Using these two examples, the authors suggest that for dedifferentiated NSC, which are to be used for the regenerative purpose, one needs to recreate the right temporal profile and ensure cell cycle progression occurs appropriately. Authors also claim that to prevent tumorigenesis originating from differentiated cell types, one needs to recreate the right temporal profile and ensure cell cycle progression occurs appropriately.

      While I agree with this, I think this is an overreaching conclusion based on just these two examples. If they could show the same for one more method of dedifferentiation (For, e.g. Lola) happening in medulla neurons which happens by a mechanism independent of Nerfin-1, Dpn, Notch axis, the argument will become more convincing and broad.<br /> Also when authors mention N mediated dedifferentiation, they need to inform that Dpn is a direct target of Notch in NBs (Doi. 10.1016/j.ydbio.2011.01.019), they do so in the discussion, but mentioning it here gives a broader context to the reader.

      Another important point that needs a mentioned here is that conclusions are based on dedifferentiation happening in the medulla neurons, which are considered less stable since they lack Prospero. Therefore whether this conclusion can be generalized for all the tumors arising from dedifferentiation in the CNS (eg, those arising from NICD activation in the central brain or thoracic region of the VNC) is another concern. Maybe authors can consider making a more conservative claim.<br /> Generalizing this conclusion to Prospero expressing NBs lies outside the scope of the current study and cannot be addressed here because central brain Type-I NBs use a different set of tTFs.<br /> - Would additional experiments be essential to support the claims of the paper? Request additional experiments only where necessary for the paper as it is, and do not ask authors to open new lines of experimentation.

      Experiments with Lola knockdown/mutants in medulla neurons can be done quickly, in my opinion, and will substantiate this claim.<br /> Another obvious question that comes to mind is if medulla neurons dedifferentiate on overexpression of Dpn, does the same happen in nerfin-1 mutant clones as well? And if yes, why has the author not done similar experiments for nerfin-1 mutants.<br /> Please show Ey staining in Fig-2 if possible, it will also help to add a line on why Slp was used as marker for mid tTFs instead of Ey.<br /> In Model shown in last figure Dpn is shown to repress D and activate Slp. Can authors show that Dpn overexpression represses D and activate Slp either by antibody staining or by RT PCR.<br /> - Are the suggested experiments realistic in terms of time and resources? It would help if you could add an estimated cost and time investment for substantial experiments.

      Experiments with Lola and nerfin-1 mutants can be done in a few months. I cannot comment on the cost involved.<br /> - Are the data and the methods presented in such a way that they can be reproduced?

      Yes<br /> - Are the experiments adequately replicated and statistical analysis adequate?

      Replication and statistical analysis are fine. The activated Notch experiments show only three data points in all the experiments. It will be good to increase this number.

      Minor comments:

      • Specific experimental issues that are easily addressable.

      There is a problem with Fig-5F (both 5E and 5F have % EdU in clone/ % Mira in the clone as y-axis), I do not understand how the Fig-5F let them conclude that D overexpression increases the rate of neuronal production.

      In one place, the authors conclude, "Together, this data suggests that it is likely that cell cycle progression lies upstream of the temporal series, to promote the generation of neurons". Authors should consider adding "medulla NBs" at the end of the sentence since cell cycle progression being upstream of temporal series is already known in Type-I NBs, as pointed out by authors as well (Ameele and Brand 2019).

      In the discussion authors says that "Our data support the possible links between cell cycle progression and the expression of temporal regulators controlling NB proliferation and cellular diversity". This is new information, as the 2019 study did not show how cell diversity changes with a changed tTF profile. I think the authors should elaborate on this point to highlight how this is different from what is already known from the 2019 study (done in the context of Type-I NBs).<br /> Maybe they need to highlight that the cell cycle directs/regulates the progression of temporal series compared to the earlier observation where temporal series was shown to be downstream of the cell cycle.

      In fig-3J in clones even after 24 AHS, Dpn continues to be overexpressed but these cells undergo terminal differentiation, can authors comment why is it so?<br /> In one place authors say, "To better assess the cumulative effect of the neurons made throughout development, EyOK107-GAL4 was used to drive the expression of Dpn" maybe some background on why use this specific GAL4.<br /> Also a line about why GMR31HI08-GAL4 eyOK107-GAL4 and and eyR16F10-GAL4 were used.<br /> - Are prior studies referenced appropriately ?

      Yes, but in a few places, some references can be added.<br /> An important point that needs to be mentioned for the context is the medulla neurons do not use Prospero for terminal differentiation and are thus considered less stable (DOI: 10.1242/dev.141341).<br /> In discussion, the authors say that "It would be interesting to explore whether N similarly acts on these target genes to specify cell fate and proliferation profiles of dedifferentiated NBs." There is a study looking at Notch targets in NB hyperplasia (DOI: 10.1242/dev.126326); whether that study shows if any of the cell cycle genes are downstream of activated Notch, needs a mention here.<br /> Also, when authors mention N mediated dedifferentiation, they need to inform that Dpn is a direct target of Notch in NBs (Doi. 10.1016/j.ydbio.2011.01.019). They do so in the discussion, but mentioning it in the introduction or results will give a broader context to the reader.<br /> Another gene that needs a mention is "Brat", which regulates both Dpn and Notch, and causes dedifferentiation and tumors in CNS, I think this gene and its interaction with Dpn and Nerfin and Notch needs to be discussed either in the introduction or discussion.<br /> - Are the text and figures clear and accurate?

      The main figures are not labeled. Therefore, it was very annoying to deduce the specific figure numbers.<br /> There are 1 or 2 places where figure calling is wrong in the text.<br /> The Image Fig-5I shows cycD and CDK4 at the G2-M transition; while the text says it supports G1/S, which is indeed the case, the figure needs modification.<br /> - Do you have suggestions that would help the authors improve the presentation of their data and conclusions?

      The presentation is okay, in my opinion.

      Significance

      • Describe the nature and significance of the advance (e.g. conceptual, technical, clinical) for the field.

      The factors leading to dedifferentiation of the neurons have been identified previously by groups of Chris Doe (mldc, DOI: 10.1242/dev.093781), Andrea brand (10.1016/j.devcel.2014.01.030.) as well as the authors of this paper (10.1101/gad.250282.114, 10.1016/j.celrep.2018.10.038.). However, many questions remained unaddressed regarding such NB generated from neuronal dedifferentiation. For example, whether these cells contribute to native cell diversity of the CNS, undergo timely differentiation or their progeny cells incorporated into appropriate circuits is not well understood. Successful execution of these phenomena is critical for generating functional CNS and such insights are crucial for understanding the origin of tumorigenesis in CNS or employing dedifferentiated NSC for regenerative purposes.

      This study is an overexpression-based study, however, some of the results give significant conceptual insights into the tumors arising out of the dedifferentiation of the neurons. It also gives insights into the fact that the dedifferentiated cells need to be carefully examined for the temporal factor profile before they can be employed for regeneration or any therapy targeting them.<br /> However, in my opinion, they need to test this idea at least in one more system of neuronal dedifferentiation, preferably independent of the nerfin-1/Notch/Dpn axis to generalize this claim.<br /> - Place the work in the context of the existing literature (provide references, where appropriate).

      Cerdic Maurange's group had looked at the role of temporal factors and identified the early phase of malignant susceptibility in Drosophila in 2016 (doi: 10.7554/eLife.13463). Andrea Brand's group has shown in a 2019 paper that cell cycle progression is essential for temporal transition in NBs (doi: 10.7554/eLife.47887). Both these studies were in the context of Type-I NBs, which express Prospero, which is crucial for the differentiation of the neurons.<br /> Previously the authors have studied type-I NBs and shown by Targeted DamID that Dpn is Nerfin-1 target. They also show that Nerfin-1 mutants show dedifferentiation of neurons. They follow up on this observation in medulla neurons, where they find that Dpn overexpression results in their dedifferentiation into medulla NBs. Medulla NBs differ from Type-I NBs in using a separate set of tTFs. Also, Type-I NB and neurons arising from them use Prospero for terminal differentiation, while medulla neurons do not express Prospero and are therefore considered less stable (DOI: 10.1242/dev.141341).

      The importance of the study lies in the results that show that the NB arising out of dedifferentiation of medulla neurons takes up mid-temporal fate. These NBs are stalled in Slp expressing mid-temporal stage unless the cell cycle is promoted by overexpression of cell cycle genes regulating G1/S transition.<br /> Authors also show that overexpression of D promotes the progression of temporal series in these dedifferentiated NBs, which could partly rescue neuronal diversity and result in terminal differentiation. Thus D plays an important role in determining the type of neurons these NBs generated. This suggests that knowing the tTF profile of these types of dedifferentiated NBs is vital if these cells were to be used for regenerative purposes. Authors further claimed that cell cycle regulation and tTFs are critical determinants of the proliferation and termination profile of dedifferentiated NBs.<br /> - State what audience might be interested in and influenced by the reported findings.

      The study will be of broader interest to researchers interested in central nervous system patterning, regeneration, and cancer biology.<br /> - Define your field of expertise with a few keywords to help the authors contextualize your point of view. Indicate if there are any parts of the paper that you do not have sufficient expertise to evaluate.

      Drosophila, central nervous system patterning and cell fate determination of neural stem cells.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      We propose three revisions, that have not yet been included in the current manuscript:

      1. All three reviewers comment on the data in figure 7, in which the application of the sensor is shown. We agree that the number of cells is low, and we plan to repeat this experiment to increase the number of cells, and better demonstrate the usefulness of the new probe. We note that the improved Cdc42 sensor is used in a recent preprint (see figures 7 and 9 of: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.22.497207v2.full), clearly showing the potential of the probe for detection of Cdc42 and increasing our confidence that we can generate higher quality data.
      2. The ratio of expression of the different components was not quantified. We have these data and we will (re)analyze it and present the results (related to Reviewer #3, point2).
      3. We will reanalyze the images to ensure that representative images are depicted in the manuscript (related to Reviewer #2, point 3).

        Reviewer #1

      1) It is not clear why RhoA data were included in this manuscript (Fig. 1), since they seem irrelevant to the primary topic addressed.

      We have cell-based data from our previous (published) work that we can use to check whether these results align with the mass-spec data. To make this point clearer we add “We looked first into GBDs for Rho, to compare the results of the mass spectrometry screen with the results of our cell-based assays”.

      2) It is not clear what cell type was used when screening for p67phox. The expression of this component of the NADPH oxidase is restricted to a few specific cell types.

      That’s a relevant point and therefore observation that p67phox is not detected is perhaps not surprising. We removed this statement.

      3) There is precious little quantitation of the colocalization or translocation of the probes throughout the manuscript. It is difficult to assess the validity of the conclusions in the absence of analysis of the statistical significance of the colocalization.

      In figure 2, which is an initial screen, there is only a qualitative assessment. However, for the promising candidates, there is a quantitative assessment in Figures 3B and 4 B as to which extent the candidates colocalize with the nuclear localized target. From the rank order and individual datapoints the best performing binder can be inferred.

      4) It is not clear why translocation to mitochondria was used in some experiments and translocation to the nucleus in others.

      To clarify, we have added text: ”We have previously used nuclear localized, constitutive active Rho GTPases, but these are not accessible for larger proteins that cannot enter the nucleus”

      5) In the S1P experiments, it is difficult to ascertain whether increased fluorescence resulted from membrane folding/ruffling or is actually a consequence of localized activation of receptors. Why does the fluorescence decrease progressively over 1500 seconds? Isn't maximal receptor activation accomplished much sooner?

      This experiment suffered from bleaching. We will redo the experiment to get higher number of cells and to improve the data.

      Reviewer #2

      Major comments

      1. Statistical tests are missing in most of the figures. If the principal purpose of this work is to compare the performance of candidate peptides, the quantitative comparison is essential. If the purpose is just to report another relocation probe, then, more application data may be necessary.

      We will improve the quality of the application data. As for statistics, we have added the effect size to figures 5C-F and figure 6A. To explain this (not so common) statistic we add to the materials and methods: “The effect size that quantifies the difference and its distribution was calculated with the web tool ‘PlotsofDifferences’”.

      1. The criteria for selecting the best peptide should be clearly described. Is it just by inspection or based on any quantitative data? We know that quantification of colocalization is a difficult task. Therefore, it depends on the aim of this work whether the authors are asked to show quantitative data or not. If a strict comparison of peptides is aimed at, the expression level of each target peptide should be at a comparable level. It will be also required whether the design of each probe guarantees the proper folding to bind to GTPases.

      There are two stages for the selection. First, we did a qualitative analysis of colocalization (shown in figure 2). Based on the results (“Candidates colocalizing with the mitochondrial tagged Rho GTPase were further tested for their potential as localization-based sensors”), we generated smaller biosensor candidates of which binding to a nuclear target was quantitatively analyze (figures 3B and 4B). As the expression level is an important factor, we ascertained potential candidates were expressed at roughly the same level in the nuclear accumulation assay.

      1. About the images of cells: When a fluorescent image is presented, we assume it represents all other cells. Please check all images whether they are truly representing the data. For example, in Fig. S3 the nuclei of ABI1-expressing cells look weird, and the nucleus of CYRI-A is very large. If this is true, the reason why ABI1 and CYRI-A should be excluded from the candidate is not the relocation efficiency but the undesired effect on cell physiology. For the screening of the peptides, this information is also very important. With that, this paper becomes more valuable for scientists.

      We agree that this is an important point. We will reanalyze the data as indicated in the ‘planned revisions’.

      1. Please examine the order of panels. For example, the result of mScarlet is on the top in Fig3, but at the bottom in Fig4. Such inconsistency would disturb readers.

      We thank the reviewer for this suggestion and we changed figure 4.

      1. The label should be consistent throughout the paper. For example, in Fig. 5A, Lck-FRB-mTurquoise2 is labeled as Lck-FRB (without the fluorescent protein's name). WASp(CRIB)-mScarlet-I-WASp(CRIB) is labeled as WASp(CRIB)-mScar-WASp(CRIB) (with fluorescent protein's name). Moreover, the same peptide is labeled as mSca-1xWASp(CRIB) in Panel B. Such inconsistency is confusing.

      We agree, we have updated figure 5A by adding the abbreviations of the fluorescent proteins. Please note that WASp(CRIB)-mSca-WASp(CRIB), mSca-1xWASp(CRIB) and mSca-2xWASp(CRIB) are three different constructs. In the first one the CRIB domains are sandwiching the fluorescent protein and in the third one they are in tandem downstream of the fluorescent protein.

      1. Quantitative insight would improve this work. For example, in Fig. 7, the reason why the authors believe that the probe worked is the accumulation of probe at the tip of lamellipodia and the decrease in cytoplasmic intensity. This reviewer does not think the accumulation of the probe in the small area of the lamellipodia explains the massive decrease of cytoplasmic signals. Probably, a substantial amount of the probe is relocated to the plasma membrane, not limited to the lamellipodia.

      Minor comments

      We propose to repeat the experiment shown in figure 7 and to improve the quality of the data.

      1. Introduction, "FRET signal is typically measured with a wide field microscope.": This reviewer does not agree with this statement. Confocal and two-photon microscopes have also been used widely.

      Fair point. We changed the text to “when the FRET signal is measured with a wide field microscope”

      Introduction, "G-protein activating proteins (GAP)": It should read as "GTPase-activating proteins (GAPs)"

      Thanks, corrected.

      TRIF should read as TIRF.

      All instances have been corrected.

      Fig.1: To the best of this reviewer's knowledge, PKN1 was first used as the RhoA target peptide by Yoshizaki et al in 2003. J Cell Biol 162, 223-232. They also examined mDia, Rhoteki, and Rhophilin as the target peptides. Pak1 was first used as the Rac1 probe by Kraynov et al. Science 290, 333-337, 2000. Use of Pak1 as the Cdc42 probe was reported by Itoh et al. Mol Cell Biol 22, 6582-659, 2002. This reviewer believes that the priority of the first report should be respected.

      We changed part of the introduction to:

      High scoring proteins for interacting with constitutively active RhoA(Q63L) included ANLN part of the AniRBD Rho location sensor (Piekny and Glotzer, 2000), PKN1 part of aRho FRET sensor (Yoshizaki et al., 2003) and RTKN part of the rGBD Rho location sensor (Benink and Bement, 2005; Mahlandt et al., 2021) (Fig. 1A,B). This suggested that proteins with a high score in the mass spectrometry screen are potentially suitable as Rho GTPase activity biosensor. Indeed, the GBDs used for Cdc42 location sensors from, PAK1 used in the PBD location sensor (Itoh et al., 2002; Petrie et al., 2012) and N-WASP similar to WASp used in the wGBD location sensor (Benink and Bement, 2005) showed a high score in the screen (Fig. 1A,B).

      Discussion:

      Another challenge is the Rho GTPase specificity of the relocation-based sensor. For example, Pak1(CRIB) was first used in a Rac1 FRET sensor (Kraynov et al., 2000)____. ThenPak1(CRIB) has been utilized in Cdc42 FRET sensors and in an intensiometric Cdc42 sensor (Hanna et al., 2014; Itoh et al., 2002; Kim et al., 2019). However, Pak1(CRIB), also named PBD sensor, has then been reintroduced by Weiner and colleagues as a Rac1 specific location-based sensor and is often used in neutrophil HL60 cells (Brunetti et al., 2022; Graziano et al., 2019; Le et al., 2021; Weiner et al., 2007).

      We also updated the tables in Figure 1.

      Fig. 1: Why do the authors omit other promising candidates shown in panel 1B? Please describe the reason for the choice.

      We took into account the availability of plasmid DNA, as also explained in the manuscript: “candidate GBDs were selected from top 30 scores of the mass spectrometry screen, that were specific for one Rho GTPase and their DNA was available on addgene”

      Fig. 1B: Be consistent to use either "Name" or "Uni Prot name" in Panel A.

      We updated figure 1.

      Fig. 2: Please include information on TOMM20. The readers may not read the paper by Gillingham et al.

      We added an explanation: “To this end, a fusion with TOMM20 was used for mitochondrial localization.”

      Fig3 and 4: The authors should show the images of control H2A.

      We provide the data for control H2A in figures 3B and 4B.

      In Fig3B and 4B, "Cdc42/Rac1 affinity" would be misleading, because the control dots represent their authentic localization rather than "Cdc42/Rac1 affinity".

      We agree, we have updated figure 3B and 4B.

      Fig. 4: More explanation of this figure is required.

      We added text: “Hence, the sensor candidate can freely partition between Rac and Cdc42 binding.”

      Fig. 5: More explanation about the FKBP-FRB system will be helpful.

      We changed the text to: “The system used rapamycin induced heterodimerization of the two domains FRB and FKBP to recruit the DHPH domain of the Cdc42 specific GEF ITSN1 to the plasma membrane, where it induces activity of the endogenous Cdc42”

      Fig. 6: It is rather surprising to see that control-mScarlet also responds to Rac1 activation. What is the explanation for this observation?

      We agree and have no explanation.

      Fig. 7: A single champion data may not be convincing to prove the usefulness of this probe.

      We agree and propose to repeat the experiment.

      Reviewer #3

      1) The discussion comparing different types of biosensors missed important points. Although the advantages of localization biosensors listed by the authors are correct, they gave the impression that these should simply be an improved replacement for FRET biosensors. There are times when FRET biosensors provide clear advantages. Unlike other proteins, Rho GTPases are well suited for localization sensors because the activated conformation, and only the activated conformation, localizes to the membrane. For diffuse or 3D localization FRET can provide better quantification. Subtle features such as gradients are not easily quantified over a background of unattached domain. The authors state that localization biosensors have enhanced spatial resolution, but this is not explained.

      We agree that our introduction is biased towards a preference for relocation based biosensors. However, having used both approaches, we see that both strategies have pro’s and cons. Therefore, we removed the claim for higher resolution and we added: “Still, the ratiometric mode of imaging FRET sensors is beneficial for detection of gradients or activity in 3D imaging”.

      2) Throughout the paper, the ratio between the GTPase and the domain, and the overall expression level of each, was not sufficiently examined. The results in many cases would be dependent on both these factors (was a large excess of domain used? Was there insufficient domain to bind the GTPase and provide a signal? Did this vary for different domains, and therefore produce the differences observed? A lack of apparent binding specificity could be produced by high domain expression.)

      This is an important point. We will re-analyze the data and include a figure where we add the binding efficiency versus the expression level.

      3) In the nuclear exclusion assay, some GTPases were excluded from the nucleus and others not. This was true even without expression of the domains. When GTPases were excluded from the nucleus, domains were eliminated from contention, even when this was true without domain. The authors could at least mention that these domains may be viable.

      Correct, and we have added this text: “we cannot exclude that these would be viable Cdc42 sensor candidates”

      4) In the multiplexing experiment, only two cells were imaged. In one cell RhoA activity was inversely correlated with Cdc42 activity. In the other cell it was not. It seems there is insufficient information to reach firm conclusions.

      We agree and in the revision plan we indicate that we will repeat this experiment to increase the number of cells.

      Minor points:

      • There appear to be errors in naming mutants. Q60L is used for constitutively active Rac, but Q61L is likely meant. H2A-mTurquoise2-Rac1(G12V)-ΔCaaX is used when it likely should be H2A-mTurquoise2-Rac1(Q61L)-ΔCaaX. There are other examples -- a careful check of these names throughout the manuscript would be valuable.

      Thanks for spotting this. Q60L is changed to Q61L. Note that the Rac1(G12V) is correct as it also is a constitutive active Rac1.

      • Intro-Paragraph 1-line 5: change present to presence

      • Intro-Paragraph 5- line 7: use them instead of theme.

      Thanks, both corrected.

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      Referee #3

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      The manuscript was clearly written, but the introduction or discussion could provide a more balanced view of the significance. There are important experiments that are required to support the conclusions regarding selectivity and differences between the domains, particularly the role of expression level and the ratio of expressed proteins. Our review is summarized here:

      The authors set out to improve localization-based biosensors for Rac1 and Cdc42 by identifying domains that bind selectively to the activated conformation of Rac1 and Cdc42. Using screens based on mitochondrial and nuclear relocalization, together with mass spec and proximity biotinylation, several potential candidates were identified. The work concludes with the identification of a WASp CRIB domain that can be used as a useful Cdc42 relocalization biosensor. It was applied in a well-executed proof of principle study demonstrating multiplexed imaging of RhoA and Cdc42 localization biosensors.

      1. The discussion comparing different types of biosensors missed important points. Although the advantages of localization biosensors listed by the authors are correct, they gave the impression that these should simply be an improved replacement for FRET biosensors. There are times when FRET biosensors provide clear advantages. Unlike other proteins, Rho GTPases are well suited for localization sensors because the activated conformation, and only the activated conformation, localizes to the membrane. For diffuse or 3D localization FRET can provide better quantification. Subtle features such as gradients are not easily quantified over a background of unattached domain. The authors state that localization biosensors have enhanced spatial resolution, but this is not explained.
      2. Throughout the paper, the ratio between the GTPase and the domain, and the overall expression level of each, was not sufficiently examined. The results in many cases would be dependent on both these factors (was a large excess of domain used? Was there insufficient domain to bind the GTPase and provide a signal? Did this vary for different domains, and therefore produce the differences observed? A lack of apparent binding specificity could be produced by high domain expression.)
      3. In the nuclear exclusion assay, some GTPases were excluded from the nucleus and others not. This was true even without expression of the domains. When GTPases were excluded from the nucleus, domains were eliminated from contention, even when this was true without domain. The authors could at least mention that these domains may be viable.
      4. In the multiplexing experiment, only two cells were imaged. In one cell RhoA activity was inversely correlated with Cdc42 activity. In the other cell it was not. It seems there is insufficient information to reach firm conclusions.

      Minor points:

      • There appear to be errors in naming mutants. Q60L is used for constitutively active Rac, but Q61L is likely meant. H2A-mTurquoise2-Rac1(G12V)-ΔCaaX is used when it likely should be H2A-mTurquoise2-Rac1(Q61L)-ΔCaaX. There are other examples -- a careful check of these names throughout the manuscript would be valuable.
      • Intro-Paragraph 1-line 5: change present to presence
      • Intro-Paragraph 5- line 7: use them instead of theme.

      Significance

      The assays and approach to finding domains for biosensors were novel and interesting. The end result was not as surprising as one might have hoped, but the approach alone made the paper worthwhile.

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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Mahlandt et al report Rho GTPase relocation sensors. First, the authors picked up candidate peptides based on the Mass-Spec data reported by Sean Munro's laboratory. The authors repeated the experiments to confirm the binding of peptides to mitochondria-targeted Cdc42 and Rac1 and narrowed down the candidate peptides by binding to nuclear Cdc42. The specificity of binding to Rac1 and Cdc42 was also tested. Eventually, they concluded that dimeric Tomato-WASp(CRIB) is the best sensor for Cdc42, which could detect S1P-induced Cdc42 activation in primary endothelial cells. The effort to improve the relocation sensors should be evaluated highly. This reviewer has some suggestions to improve this paper.

      Major comments:

      1. Statistical tests are missing in most of the figures. If the principal purpose of this work is to compare the performance of candidate peptides, the quantitative comparison is essential. If the purpose is just to report another relocation probe, then, more application data may be necessary.
      2. The criteria for selecting the best peptide should be clearly described. Is it just by inspection or based on any quantitative data? We know that quantification of colocalization is a difficult task. Therefore, it depends on the aim of this work whether the authors are asked to show quantitative data or not. If a strict comparison of peptides is aimed at, the expression level of each target peptide should be at a comparable level. It will be also required whether the design of each probe guarantees the proper folding to bind to GTPases.
      3. About the images of cells: When a fluorescent image is presented, we assume it represents all other cells. Please check all images whether they are truly representing the data. For example, in Fig. S3 the nuclei of ABI1-expressing cells look weird, and the nucleus of CYRI-A is very large. If this is true, the reason why ABI1 and CYRI-A should be excluded from the candidate is not the relocation efficiency but the undesired effect on cell physiology. For the screening of the peptides, this information is also very important. With that, this paper becomes more valuable for scientists.
      4. Please examine the order of panels. For example, the result of mScarlet is on the top in Fig3, but at the bottom in Fig4. Such inconsistency would disturb readers.
      5. The label should be consistent throughout the paper. For example, in Fig. 5A, Lck-FRB-mTurquoise2 is labeled as Lck-FRB (without the fluorescent protein's name). WASp(CRIB)-mScarlet-I-WASp(CRIB) is labeled as WASp(CRIB)-mScar-WASp(CRIB) (with fluorescent protein's name). Moreover, the same peptide is labeled as mSca-1xWASp(CRIB) in Panel B. Such inconsistency is confusing.
      6. Quantitative insight would improve this work. For example, in Fig. 7, the reason why the authors believe that the probe worked is the accumulation of probe at the tip of lamellipodia and the decrease in cytoplasmic intensity. This reviewer does not think the accumulation of the probe in the small area of the lamellipodia explains the massive decrease of cytoplasmic signals. Probably, a substantial amount of the probe is relocated to the plasma membrane, not limited to the lamellipodia.

      Minor comments:

      1. Introduction, "FRET signal is typically measured with a wide field microscope.": This reviewer does not agree with this statement. Confocal and two-photon microscopes have also been used widely.
      2. Introduction, "G-protein activating proteins (GAP)": It should read as "GTPase-activating proteins (GAPs)"
      3. TRIF should read as TIRF.
      4. Fig.1: To the best of this reviewer's knowledge, PKN1 was first used as the RhoA target peptide by Yoshizaki et al in 2003. J Cell Biol 162, 223-232. They also examined mDia, Rhoteki, and Rhophilin as the target peptides. Pak1 was first used as the Rac1 probe by Kraynov et al. Science 290, 333-337, 2000. Use of Pak1 as the Cdc42 probe was reported by Itoh et al. Mol Cell Biol 22, 6582-659, 2002. This reviewer believes that the priority of the first report should be respected.
      5. Fig. 1: Why do the authors omit other promising candidates shown in panel 1B? Please describe the reason for the choice.
      6. Fig. 1B: Be consistent to use either "Name" or "Uni Prot name" in Panel A.
      7. Fig. 2: Please include information on TOMM20. The readers may not read the paper by Gillingham et al.
      8. Fig3 and 4: The authors should show the images of control H2A.
      9. In Fig3B and 4B, "Cdc42/Rac1 affinity" would be misleading, because the control dots represent their authentic localization rather than "Cdc42/Rac1 affinity".
      10. Fig. 4: More explanation of this figure is required.
      11. Fig. 5: More explanation about the FKBP-FRB system will be helpful.
      12. Fig. 6: It is rather surprising to see that control-mScarlet also responds to Rac1 activation. What is the explanation for this observation?
      13. Fig. 7: A single champion data may not be convincing to prove the usefulness of this probe.

      Significance

      1. The authors have screened many peptides, which may serve as the relocation sensor for Rho-family GTPases.
      2. There are precedent relocation sensors, a part of which is listed in Fig. 1A. This work discloses an improved relocation biosensor.
      3. Cell biologists who is working on Cdc42 will be interested in this probe.
      4. Expertise of this reviewer: Signal transduction, Fluorescence microscopy.
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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      In this manuscript Mahlandt et al. report efforts to generate sensitive fluorescent biosensors to monitor the activation of Rac and Cdc42. While biosensors for these GTPases have been designed and used by others, some have poor specificity while others require the measurement of FRET, which is technically more complex and usually yields low signal to noise ratios. The efforts of Mahlandt et al. are therefore well justified and commendable, and follow on the heels of their successful development of a Rho-selective probe (J. Cell Sci., 2021).

      The authors used existing data of interacting proteins to identify candidate domains that could be adapted for use as Rac or Cdc42 activation indicators. They proceeded to select the most promising candidates, assessed their specificity and tried to improve their efficiency by generating tandem constructs that are expected to have higher avidity. They identify CYRA-I as a positive Rac interactor, but the affinity and selectivity of this construct were not deemed to be sufficient and this line of enquiry was not pursued further. In contrast, the WASp-CRIB was found to be sufficiently Cdc42-specific and its avidity was improved by generating a construct tagged with dimeric Tomato fluorescent protein. Unfortunately, while data using overexpression of active Cdc42 are convincing and clear, the results obtained under physiological conditions -stimulating cells with S1P- show very modest recruitment. The general usefulness of the probe is therefore questionable.

      There are also a number of specific issues:

      1. It is not clear why RhoA data were included in this manuscript (Fig. 1), since they seem irrelevant to the primary topic addressed.
      2. It is not clear what cell type was used when screening for p67phox. The expression of this component of the NADPH oxidase is restricted to a few specific cell types.
      3. There is precious little quantitation of the colocalization or translocation of the probes throughout the manuscript. It is difficult to assess the validity of the conclusions in the absence of analysis of the statistical significance of the colocalization.
      4. It is not clear why translocation to mitochondria was used in some experiments and translocation to the nucleus in others.
      5. In the S1P experiments, it is difficult to ascertain whether increased fluorescence resulted from membrane folding/ruffling or is actually a consequence of localized activation of receptors. Why does the fluorescence decrease progressively over 1500 seconds? Isn't maximal receptor activation accomplished much sooner?

      Significance

      While the purpose and intent of the study are commendable, the results are far from convincing and the probes designed do not represent a sufficient improvement over existing biosensors. The lack of quantitative and statistical analyses is problematic, as is it is difficult to assess the significance of the results.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      1. General Statements [optional]

      We thank the reviewers for fair and constructive comments, and for good suggestions for how to further improve the manuscript. We also appreciate the comments on novelty and potential importance for future clinical approaches for CADASIL. Below we provide our point-by-point responses to the reviewers’ comments. We start with a description of planned revisions, followed by describing changes already carried out in the transferred manuscript.

      2. Description of the planned revisions

      We plan to experimentally address the following points raised by the reviewers.

      First, we will address the ASMA staining in the arterioles by isolating brain microvessels from the TgN3R182C150 mouse and WT mouse and strain for ASMA and perlecan/PDGFRb (stain pericytes and VSMC) to in more detail visualize that ASMA is only expressed in the arterioles and not in the pericytes in the capillaries (reviewer 1, point 4).

      Second, we will assess the safety and toxicity of the active immunotherapy (reviewer 2, point 4). Specifically, we plan to analyse the structure and morphology of the kidneys from sham and vaccinated mice for renal damage by histology, H/E staining as well as creatinine levels in the serum. If the histology shows signs of damage (such as necrosis, apoptosis or granules in the tubules), we will stain the tissue with KIM1 for acute renal damage and caspase 3 for apoptosis. Moreover, we will analyse the inflammation C-Reactive Protein (CRP) marker in the serum by western blot analysis and/or ELISA and finally Neurofilament Light chain protein in the serum by SIMOA analysis to monitor if the vaccination is causing any neurodegeneration.

      Third, we will improve the image quality for Figure 5A (reviewer 1, point 5).

      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity):

      Summary:

      This study have used immunogenic aggregates formed by recombinant Notch3 fragments EGF 1-5 that contain CADASIL NOTCH3 R133C and wild type NOTCH3 to inoculate a CADASIL mouse model TgN3R182C as an active immunisation therapy of CADASIL. The vaccinated mice showed a decreased deposition of NOTCH3 around brain capillaries, reduced blood NOTCH3 ECD and microglia activation, suggesting a potential novel therapy for future treatment of CADASIL. The lack of impact on retinal vasculature, body weight, and general behaviour of the treated mice indicate the safety of the therapy.

      We thank the reviewer for the positive comments and for finding it to be a potential novel and safe therapy for CADASIL.

      Major comments:

      The results are interesting and the manuscript was carefully written and presented. However, the reduction of NOTCH3 in blood samples and the deposition around capillaries were so modest, plus there was no significant change of NOTCH3 deposition in arterioles. This questions the real effectiveness of this immunisation therapy when translating to clinical patients.

      We thank the reviewers for the positive words on the manuscript and understand the concerns over the lack of effects in the arterioles. We still believe that observing NOTCH3 ECD reductions around capillaries and in the blood is a significant step forward and supports further endeavors in the area of active immunization, especially considering that the treatment is well tolerated with no overt NOTCH3-related toxicity effects. With this said, we of course realize that there would still be a long way towards clinical use, but all therapy developments have to start somewhere, and future studies (from us and others) can build on the data presented here. There are a number of possible explanations as to why there was not a significant reduction of NOTCH3 around the arterioles. It might be due to that the TgN3R182C150 model is a mild disease model which has a NOTCH3 accumulation onset around 6-7 months of age that starts in the capillaries and at later ages spreads to the arterioles, and that a different time axis or longer immunization period would also lead to a reduction of NOTCH3 in the arterioles, which can be addressed in future experiments. We however believe it was worthwhile to first explore an early immunization protocol, as it may pave the way to a treatment strategy that can be used early on the disease progress, maybe already at the pre-symptomatic phase.

      Minor comments:

      • Figure EV1 is redundant as Figure 2C has the same information.

      We agree the figures are redundant and have deleted Figure EV1 in our new version and renamed EV2 and EV3 to EV1 and EV2, respectively.

      • P5 last line "there was a prominent loss of monomeric NOTCH3 EGF1-5 when WT and R133C fragments were mixed as compared to incubating them separately (Fig 2C)". Why the aggregation is more obvious when mutant protein fragment mixed with wild type comparing mutant fragment alone?

      The reviewer raises an interesting point. While we do not strictly know why a mixing of mutated and wildtype fragments promote aggregation, our observations are in line with previous reports. Duering et al. Hum. Mol. Genet, 2011 used a single-particle approach SIFT (scanning for intensely fluorescent targets) to study the co-aggregation of WT and mutant NOTCH3 EGF1-5 proteins and reported that mixtures of WT and mutant proteins showed dual colour high-intensity signals, representing de novo aggregates. They also observed WT/R133C multimer formation over three days as compared to five days used in our study. It is also of note that most CADASIL cases are heterozygous for the NOTCH3 mutation, which suggests that wildtypeand mutant NOTCH3 proteins co-exist in vivo, which also have been confirmed by co-immunoprecipitation experiments from cell lysates by Opherk et al. Hum. Mol. Genet. 2009. In the light of these previous reports, we performed a variety of ratio between WT and R133C NOTCH3 EGF1-5 proteins and opted for a 1:1 mixture since it showed the highest amount of multimers in relation to monomers after incubation.

      • How was the dosage or concentration of aggregated protein (0.5 mg/ml) used for immunisation determined?

      The dosage concentration was calculated by measuring the purified protein with a BCA absorbance assay. The protein was then mixed with the adjuvant or PBS to the desired concentration. This is now more clearly described in the Materials and Methods.

      • P7 line 1-2, while using ASMA as a marker for arteries/arterioles, didn't the author see any expression of ASMA in pericytes (capillaries)?

      We have used a direct fluorescent conjugated ASMA antibody for this mouse strain and another mouse strain with same mutation but higher NOTCH3 expression (described in Rutten et al, Acta Neuropathol Commun, 2015) as well as for the wildtype mice. In all cases, we find that pericytes have no or very low ASMA expression. This is in line with a report from Ghezali et al. Ann Neurol 2018, in which they used perlecan as a marker for pericytes in the rat Notch3 R169C mutation model, since ASMA did not stain the capillaries. The lack of ASMA staining in pericytes is in agreement with our previous large-scale single cell RNA-seq study of the mouse brain vasculature, where we find very little ASMA (ACTA2) gene expression in pericytes, while it is abundant in the vascular smooth muscle cells (Vanlandewijck et al., Nature 2018).

      With this said, we will in the revised version include images on isolated brain microvessels from the N3TgR182C150 mouse model and WT that are stained with ASMA and perlecan/PDGFRb to clearly show that ASMA only stains the arterioles and not the capillaries, see Point 2 “Description of planned revisions” part above.

      • In Figure 5A, the NOTCH3 ECD signal looks like similar between Shame and Vaccinated, although the quantifications seem significant in Figure 5B. The author may discuss the robustness of the quantitation method used and therefore the conclusion (i.e., active immunization with NOTCH3 EGF1-5 WT/R133C aggregates specifically reduces the amount of NOTCH3 aggregates around cerebral capillaries.).

      We agree that Figure 5A is not clearly showing the differences between vaccinated and sham although highly significant. We have included more representative images and we have also improved the description of the quantification in the method part (page 18-19).

      • In Figure 8B, what does the "% of microglia area" mean and how was it calculated?

      The % of microglia area represents the percentage that the CD68 staining occupies per microglia area (stained by Iba1), meaning that the vaccinated mice contain more activated microglia compared to sham. This was calculated by measuring the area of the CD68 staining that colocalizes with the microglia. In the transferred version, we have improved the description of this in the text (page 18-19).

      • Figure 9A doesn't seem to support the conclusion "There was also a trend towards more NOTCH3 ECD deposits inside or in close vicinity to microglia in vaccinated TgN3R182C150 mice compared to control or sham-vaccinated TgN3R182C150 mice, although the difference did not reach statistical significance", as it is not so convincing that the signals of the NOTCH3 ECD staining co-localise with microglia in the vaccinated sample. Besides, what's the meaning or functional significance about "% of microglia area", "number/1000 um2 microglia", and "average size per microglia"?

      Thank you for the comments and we understand the concern, given the highly complex morphology and dynamics of microglia, which makes it difficult to describe potential differences in a straightforward manner. In the first graph in Figure 9B we show that the vaccinated mice had a higher percentage of microglia with NOTCH3 ECD deposits. However, these deposits did not occupy more area of the microglia (% microglia area, second graph), or showed a significant increase in the number of deposits per microglia area (number/1000 µm2 microglia, third graph). The average size of these deposits did not increase in a significant way per microglia area (average size per microglia µm2, fourth graph) in comparison to sham and non-vaccinated mice. We have rephrased the text to better indicate that the proportion of microglia with NOTCH3 deposits increased, while not the area or number of deposits within a microglial cell (Results, page 9).

      Reviewer #1 (Significance):

      CADASIL is the most common genetic small vessel disease that leads to cognitive defect and eventual vascular dementia. Current, there is no specific treatment available. Similar to a number of neurodegenerative conditions caused by protein accumulations like Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson disease and Huntington disease etc, NOTCH3 protein accumulation represents a key pathological change in CADASIL and therefore a drug target. The approach of active immunisation therapy described in this paper demonstrated a novel method for the treatment of this condition. Although the effectiveness of the therapy in the transgenic mouse model of CADASIL was yet highly impressive, this paper provides a proof-of-principle that the active immunisation is more or less functional and, most importantly, tolerable. One other advantage of this approach is that the immunisation therapy is not restricted to a specific NOTCH3 mutation. After further development this strategy could potentially benefit patients in the future.

      This paper may be interested by researchers working on diseases that are caused by specific protein accumulation or aggregations.

      My expertise is in the area of studying the molecular mechanisms of CADASIL and other genetic small vessel diseases.

      We thank the reviewer for these comments and that the manuscript provides proof-of-principle for a novel strategy towards a safe and tolerable therapy for future treatment of CADASIL patients. As such, we believe the study will be a useful platform and resource for future studies from us and others.

      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity):

      The article submitted by Daniel V. Oliveira et al to Review Commons and titled "NOTCH3 active immunotherapy reduces NOTCH3 deposition in brain capillaries in a CADASIL mouse model" describes a novel active immunization therapy against the aggregated NOTCH3 mutant protein associated to CADASIL pathology. This strategy induces a significant reduction in NOTCH3 deposition around brain capillaries, increase of microglia activation and lowering of serum levels of NOTCH3, that demonstrates the potential clinical value of the therapy. In addition, the authors report that the therapy is safe and tolerable.<br /> The study is well written, very clear and the results are very promising.

      We thank the reviewer for positive comments on our work and pleased that you find the manuscript well and clearly written and containing promising data.

      Same minor comments need to be clarified before publication.<br /> 1. In the introduction is indicated that ".....Aducanumab recently being approved for treatment of AD by the Food and Drug Association (Budd Haeberlein et al, 2017; Mintun et al, 2021; Tolar et al, 2020)." In the discussion, Page 10, "In the quest for AD therapies, emerging encouraging results suggest a clinically meaningful effect from immunotherapies aimed at clearing Ab-amyloid which recently also have led to the first FDA approval of a passive vaccine for treatment of AD (Demattos et al, 2012; Golde et al, 2009; Sevigny et al, 2016).<br /> References should be updated with recent clinical studies about the efficacy of Aducanumab.

      This is a valid point. We have updated the manuscript accordingly, and included a recent study on the effect of Aducanumab (Knopman et al. Alzheimers Dement. 2021).

      1. Schedule used to induce active immunization should be justified or referenced.

      We appreciate this comment and realize that we did not explain the rationale for the immunization scheme in the original version. We used a similar immunization schedule as used by Kontsekova et al. Alzheimer's Research & Therapy 2014 in their study of active immunization of a tau peptide in a transgenic rat Alzheimer disease model. This is now mentioned in the text on page 6. The slight modifications of the Kontsekova et al., scheme are also described in the Materials and Methods, page 15 (we made some slight modifications in order to be compatible to mouse and also immunized with an aggregated protein of 25kD instead of a 2 kD tau peptide).

      1. CADASIL is associated with high risk of stroke, dementia and migraine. Did the authors check the brain of TgN3R182C150 mice by MRI, for instance? This analysis could be interesting in order to increase the clinical impact and the translational value of the therapy.

      Thank you for pointing this out. We have previously reported MRI data on a more severe CADASIL mouse model (TgN3R182C350), which harbors the same transgene but expressed at a 2.3 times higher level compared to the mouse model used in this study (Rutten et al. Acta Neuropathol. Commun. 2015 and Gravesteijn et al. Transl. Stroke Res. 2020). We did not observe any consistent differences on MRI or behavior between the TgN3R182C350 model and controls at 20 months of age. From this data we do not expect to see any differences on MRI in our milder model at 7 months of age. We have however included a short description of the previous MRI data in the transferred version on page 12.

      1. It is indicated that the therapy did not affect to the vascular structure of the retina, suggesting that endogenous Notch signaling was not affected by vaccination and therefore the therapy is safe; however, additional tox analysis should be included to confirm the biocompatibility, such as blood pressure analysis, inflammation markers, renal and hepatic damage marker.

      Thank you for pointing out this important issue regarding the safety aspects for our active immunotherapy. We will address this by additional experiments of the renal damage by histology and inflammation markers and neuronal damage markers in the serum with western blotting/ELISA and SIMOA, which we have written in more detail in Point 2 “Description of planned revisions” part above.

      The suggestions for blood pressure and hepatic damage analysis are valid but would require that we restart novel series of experiments from scratch, as we currently do not have immunized mice up and running. Such an experiment would take several months, and with the subsequent analysis, most likely more than a year. We believe this time axis is too long, and we therefore respectfully suggest waiving these experiments. Also, we unfortunately did not collect livers from the first round of animals, so analysis of livers would have a similarly long time axis.

      Reviewer #2 (Significance):

      The study is well written, very clear and the results are very promising. Some references related with the effect of Aducanumab in AD should ne updated. Safety and Tox analysis of the therapy should be complemented with additional assays.

      We thank the reviewer for these positive comments. We have updated the manuscript with a new reference regarding the effect of Aducanumab. For the safety and tox analysis we will do additional experimental analysis which we have addressed above in “Description of planned revisions”.

      3. Description of the revisions that have already been incorporated in the transferred manuscript

      Please insert a point-by-point reply describing the revisions that were already carried out and included in the transferred manuscript. If no revisions have been carried out yet, please leave this section empty.

      We deleted Figure EV1 in our new version and renamed EV2 and EV3 to EV1 and EV2, respectively. (Reviewer 1, point 1).

      We provide an improved description of how the dosage concentration was calculated by measuring the purified protein with a BCA absorbance assay (Reviewer 1, point 3) (Materials and Methods, page 15).

      We have improved the description of the quantification of the immunohistochemistry in the method part (Reviewer 1, point 5) (Materials and Methods, page 18-19).

      We have improved the description of microglia in the quantification in the method part (Reviewer 1, point 6 and 7) (Materials and Methods, page 18-19).

      We have rephrased the text to better indicate that the proportion of microglia with NOTCH3 deposits increased, while not the area or number of deposits within a microglial cell (Results, page 9).

      We have updated the manuscript accordingly, and included a recent study on the effect of Aducanumab (Knopman et al. Alzheimers Dement. 2021). (Reviewer 2, point 1).

      We have provided a rationale and a more detailed description of the immunization protocol. (Reviewer 2, point 2) (Materials and Methods, page 15).

      We have included a short description of the previous MRI data in the transferred version. (Reviewer 2, point 3), (Discussion, page 12)

      We have included the following new references (Vanlandewijck et al., Nature 2018, Knopman et al. Alzheimers Dement. 2021, Kontsekova et al. Alzheimer's Research & Therapy 2014, Gravesteijn et al. Transl. Stroke Res. 2020).

      4. Description of analyses that authors prefer not to carry out

      Please include a point-by-point response explaining why some of the requested data or additional analyses might not be necessary or cannot be provided within the scope of a revision. This can be due to time or resource limitations or in case of disagreement about the necessity of such additional data given the scope of the study. Please leave empty if not applicable.

      The suggestions for blood pressure and hepatic damage analysis are valid but would require that we restart novel series of experiments from scratch, as we currently do not have immunized mice up and running. Such an experiment would take several months, and with the subsequent analysis, most likely more than a year. We believe this time axis is too long, and we therefore respectfully suggest waiving these experiments. Also, we unfortunately did not collect livers from the first round of animals, so analysis of livers would have a similar time axis.

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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      The article submitted by Daniel V. Oliveira et al to Review Commons and titled "NOTCH3 active immunotherapy reduces NOTCH3 deposition in brain capillaries in a CADASIL mouse model" describes a novel active immunization therapy against the aggregated NOTCH3 mutant protein associated to CADASIL pathology. This strategy induces a significant reduction in NOTCH3 deposition around brain capillaries, increase of microglia activation and lowering of serum levels of NOTCH3, that demonstrates the potential clinical value of the therapy. In addition, the authors report that the therapy is safe and tolerable.<br /> The study is well written, very clear and the results are very promising.

      Same minor comments need to be clarified before publication.

      1. In the introduction is indicated that ".....Aducanumab recently being approved for treatment of AD by the Food and Drug Association (Budd Haeberlein et al, 2017; Mintun et al, 2021; Tolar et al, 2020)." In the discussion, Page 10, "In the quest for AD therapies, emerging encouraging results suggest a clinically meaningful effect from immunotherapies aimed at clearing Ab-amyloid which recently also have led to the first FDA approval of a passive vaccine for treatment of AD (Demattos et al, 2012; Golde et al, 2009; Sevigny et al, 2016).<br /> References should be updated with recent clinical studies about the efficacy of Aducanumab.
      2. Schedule used to induce active immunization should be justified or referenced.
      3. CADASIL is associated with high risk of stroke, dementia and migraine. Did the authors check the brain of TgN3R182C150 mice by MRI, for instance? This analysis could be interesting in order to increase the clinical impact and the translational value of the therapy.
      4. It is indicated that the therapy did not affect to the vascular structure of the retina, suggesting that endogenous Notch signaling was not affected by vaccination and therefore the therapy is safe; however, additional tox analysis should be included to confirm the biocompatibility, such as blood pressure analysis, inflammation markers, renal and hepatic damage marker, ....

      Significance

      The study is well written, very clear and the results are very promising. Some references related with the effect of Aducanumab in AD should ne updated. Safety and Tox analysis of the therapy should be complemented with additional assays.

    3. Note: This preprint has been reviewed by subject experts for Review Commons. Content has not been altered except for formatting.

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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary:

      This study have used immunogenic aggregates formed by recombinant Notch3 fragments EGF 1-5 that contain CADASIL NOTCH3 R133C and wild type NOTCH3 to inoculate a CADASIL mouse model TgN3R182C as an active immunisation therapy of CADASIL. The vaccinated mice showed a decreased deposition of NOTCH3 around brain capillaries, reduced blood NOTCH3 ECD and microglia activation, suggesting a potential novel therapy for future treatment of CADASIL. The lack of impact on retinal vasculature, body weight, and general behaviour of the treated mice indicate the safety of the therapy.

      Major comments:

      The results are interesting and the manuscript was carefully written and presented. However, the reduction of NOTCH3 in blood samples and the deposition around capillaries were so modest, plus there was no significant change of NOTCH3 deposition in arterioles. This questions the real effectiveness of this immunisation therapy when translating to clinical patients.

      Minor comments:

      • Figure EV1 is redundant as Figure 2C has the same information.
      • P5 last line "there was a prominent loss of monomeric NOTCH3 EGF1-5 when WT and R133C fragments were mixed as compared to incubating them separately (Fig 2C)". Why the aggregation is more obvious when mutant protein fragment mixed with wild type comparing mutant fragment alone?
      • How was the dosage or concentration of aggregated protein (0.5 mg/ml) used for immunisation determined?
      • P7 line 1-2, while using ASMA as a marker for arteries/arterioles, didn't the author see any expression of ASMA in pericytes (capillaries)?
      • In Figure 5A, the NOTCH3 ECD signal looks like similar between Shame and Vaccinated, although the quantifications seem significant in Figure 5B. The author may discuss the robustness of the quantitation method used and therefore the conclusion (i.e., active immunization with NOTCH3 EGF1-5 WT/R133C aggregates specifically reduces the amount of NOTCH3 aggregates around cerebral capillaries.).
      • In Figure 8B, what does the "% of microglia area" mean and how was it calculated?
      • Figure 9A doesn't seem to support the conclusion "There was also a trend towards more NOTCH3 ECD deposits inside or in close vicinity to microglia in vaccinated TgN3R182C150 mice compared to control or sham-vaccinated TgN3R182C150 mice, although the difference did not reach statistical significance", as it is not so convincing that the signals of the NOTCH3 ECD staining co-localise with microglia in the vaccinated sample. Besides, what's the meaning or functional significance about "% of microglia area", "number/1000 um2 microglia", and "average size per microglia"?

      Significance

      CADASIL is the most common genetic small vessel disease that leads to cognitive defect and eventual vascular dementia. Current, there is no specific treatment available. Similar to a number of neurodegenerative conditions caused by protein accumulations like Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson disease and Huntington disease etc, NOTCH3 protein accumulation represents a key pathological change in CADASIL and therefore a drug target. The approach of active immunisation therapy described in this paper demonstrated a novel method for the treatment of this condition. Although the effectiveness of the therapy in the transgenic mouse model of CADASIL was yet highly impressive, this paper provides a proof-of-principle that the active immunisation is more or less functional and, most importantly, tolerable. One other advantage of this approach is that the immunisation therapy is not restricted to a specific NOTCH3 mutation. After further development this strategy could potentially benefit patients in the future.

      This paper may be interested by researchers working on diseases that are caused by specific protein accumulation or aggregations.

      My expertise is in the area of studying the molecular mechanisms of CADASIL and other genetic small vessel diseases.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      Author response (Tane at al: RC-2022-01646)

      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)): * Comments The work described in this manuscript starts with an in-silico analysis of the primary amino-acid sequence of CAP-H proteins that reveals the presence in vertebrate orthologs of an N-terminal extension of ~80 amino acids in length which contains 19 serine or threonine residues and also, in its centre, a stretch of conserved basic amino acids predicted to form a helix. These features suggest a regulatory module. Using xenopus egg extracts depleted of endogenous condensins and supplemented with recombinant condensin I holocomplexes, either wildtype or mutants, the authors show that deleting the N-terminal tail of CAP-H, or just the central helix (CH), increases the association condensin I with chromatin in mitotic egg extracts and accelerates the formation of mitotic chromosomes. Interestingly, they also show that deleting the N-tail enables a substantial amount of condensin I to associate with chromatin in interphase extracts and to form chromosome-like structures, while WT condensin I cannot. Using in vitro assays and naked DNA as substrate, the authors further show that removing the N-terminal tail of CAP-H improves both the topological (salt-resistant) association of condensin I with DNA and it loop extrusion activity. These experiments appear to me as are clear and robust. They convincingly reveal that N-tail of human CAP-H hinders the binding of condensin I to DNA and both its loop-extrusion and chromosome-shaping activities. However, the mechanism through which such hindrance is achieved remains elusive (see major comments 1-3). A complementary part of the work tackles the important question of the cell cycle control of such counteracting effect. Using newly-designed antibodies against two phospho-serine residues within the tail, the authors provide evidence that the tail is phosphorylated in mitosis-specific manner. This points towards phosphorylation as a biological mean to modulate the effect of the tail on condensin's binding during the cell cycle. In support to this idea, using non-phosphorylatable or phosphomimic substitutions of all the serine and threonine residues within the tail (n =19), including one substitution within the CH domain (Ser 70), the authors show that non-phosphorylatable mutations (H-N19A) or phosphomimic mutations (H-N19D) respectively reduce or improve condensin I binding to chromatin in mitotic egg extracts. This suggests that the phosphorylation of the N-terminal tail in mitosis might relieve its negative effect on condensin I binding to chromatin. The weaknesses I see in this part of the study concern (1) the validation of the phospho-antibodies, which appears to me as insufficiently described (major comment 4), (2) the possibility the bulk changes in amino acids (n=19 out of 80) could impact the folding of the central helix (minor comment X) and (3) that some substitutions could impact the binding of condensin I by different mechanisms (minor comment X).

      Major comments:

      1. On the model. The authors propose that the N-tail could stabilise an interaction between the N-terminal part of CAP-H and SMC2's neck, which would restrain the transient opening of a DNA entry gate within the ring, necessary for the topological engagement of DNA and loop formation. Although the model is sound, I see no direct data that support it in the manuscript. Such model predicts that a CAP-H protein containing or not the N-terminal tail (or the central helix) should exhibit different binding strengths to SMC2 in vitro. It seems to me that the authors could easily test this prediction using the recombinant proteins they produced in the context of this study. *

      Response

      We thank the reviewer for pointing out this important issue. To test whether the CAP-H N-tail indeed contributes to the stabilization of the SMC2-kleisin gate, we set up a highly sophisticated functional assay described by Hassler et al (2019). The authors used this assay to demonstrate that an N-terminal fragment of kleisin (engineered to be cleaved by TEV protease) is released from the rest of the condensin complex in an ATP-dependent (i.e., head-head engagement-dependent) manner. We reasoned that this assay is most powerful to prove our hypothesis in a mechanistically relevant context. We envisioned that the CAP-H fragment lacking its N-tail can readily be released whereas the CAP-H fragment retaining its N-tail is more difficult to be released (because of the postulated stabilization of the SMC2-CAP-H interaction). Despite substantial efforts in making TEV-cleavable constructs and in testing various releasing conditions, we have not been able to recapitulate the ATP-dependent release even with the holo(H-dN) construct. Thus, unfortunately, this trial enabled us to neither prove nor disprove our hypothesis.

      We are fully aware that the full reconstitution of ATP-dependent and phosphorylation-stimulated gate-opening reaction in vitro is a very important direction in the future. It is beyond the scope of the current study, however.

      2. On ATP-hydrolysis. Given the importance of ATP hydrolysis for the engagement of condensin into a topological mode of association with DNA and for its loop extrusion activity, I suggest that the authors measure the impact of the N-tail and of the CH domain on the rate of ATP hydrolysis by condensin I holocomplexes. I suppose that it can be relatively easily done (PMID: 9288743) using the recombinant WT and mutant versions they purified in the course of this study.

      Response

      We appreciate this constructive comment. In fact, we did a preliminary experiment and found that ATPase activities (either in the absence or presence of DNA) were not significantly different between holo(WT) and holo(H-dN). We were not surprised with this result because our previous study on condensin II indicated that enhanced ATP hydrolysis by a class of mutant complexes is not directly coupled to their enhanced association with chromosomes (Yoshida et al., 2022, eLife). We consider that other functional assays, such as the topological loading assay and the loop extrusion assay shown in the current manuscript, are more informative assays to address ATP-dependent activities of the condensin complexes.

      3. A conundrum with previous work? In Kimura et al. Science 1998 (PMID: 9774278), the lab of Tatsuya Hirano has shown that xenopus condensin I purified from mitotic egg extracts induces the supercoiling of plasmid DNA in vitro, but fails to do so when it is purified from interphase egg extracts. This echoes the inhibitory effect of the N-tail of the topological binding of condensin I described in the current manuscript. However, using a gel shift assay, Kimura et al. 1998 also provide evidence that interphase and mitotic condensin I bind plasmid DNA in vitro with similar efficiencies. At first sight, this prior observation seems to contradict the idea that the N-tail of CAP-H restrains DNA binding unless it is phosphorylated in mitosis. Is it possible that the in vitro binding assays used in Kimura et al. 1998 and in this work might assess different modes of binding? I suggest that this apparent conundrum should to be discussed.

      Response

      We thank the reviewer for following our early studies. As discussed below, we are confident that our conclusion reported in the current study by no means contradicts our previous observations.

      We reason that the confusion expressed by the reviewer stems from intrinsic, technical limitations of the gel-shift assay. Such limitations become apparent especially when it is applied to the functional analyses of complicated protein machines such as condensins. For instance, the DNA-binding activity of condensin I detected by the gel-shift assay is neither ATP-dependent nor phosphorylation-dependent (Kimura and Hirano, 1997; Kimura et al., 1998). It is fundamentally different from the ATP-dependent activities detected by the topological loading and loop extrusion assays reported in the current study (It remains unknown whether the two activities are stimulated by mitotic phosphorylation). Thus, the DNA-binding activity detected by the gel-shift assay does not reflect “productive” DNA interactions that depend on ATP hydrolysis in vitro. We therefore consider that gel-shift analyses of holo(WT) and holo(H-dN) would not produce any useful information.

      *Related to that, could it be possible for the authors to assess the impact of the N-tail on the salt-sensitive binding of condensin to DNA, i.e. by reproducing the topological binding assay but omitting the high salt washes? I guess this information could be useful to fully apprehend the impact of the N-tail on the binding of condensin. *

      Response

      When we set up the topological loading assay, we actually tested a low-salt wash condition that the reviewer suggests here. Although a much higher level of DNA recovery was observed with the low-salt condition than with the high-salt wash condition, no nucleotide dependency was detectable with the low-salt condition. Moreover, no difference in DNA recovery between holo(WT) and holo(H-dN) was observed. Thus, the low-condition condition allowed us to detect the “bulk” DNA-binding activity that is equivalent to that detected by the gel-shift assay. These results were fully consistent with the discussion above.

      4. Validation of phospho-antibodies and by extension showing the phosphorylation of the tail. The newly-designed phospho-serine antibodies used in this study to show that the N-tail is phosphorylated at serine 17 and serine 76 in mitosis (Fig. EV3) are, in my view, not characterized enough. This piece of data is key to substantiate the idea that the tail is phosphorylated in mitosis. Yet, showing that these antibodies detect epitopes on WT condensin I from mitotic egg extracts but not on the H-N19A counterpart, nor on WT condensin I from interphase extracts, does not demonstrate the phospho-specificity of such antibodies. I suggest that a PPase treatment should be conducted to assess the phospho-specificity of these antibodies. Moreover, since the lab of Tatsuya Hirano has the know-how to deplete Cdc2/CDK1 from xenopus egg extract, such strategy could/should be used to further validate the antibodies and assess to which extent the N-tail is phosphorylated in a Cdc2-dependent manner.

      Response

      We have performed two sets of experiments to confirm the specificity of the phosphoepitopes recognized by anti-hHP1 and anti-hHP2. In the first set, we performed a phosphatase treatment assay. Holo(WT) that had been preincubated with Dcond M-HSS was immunoprecipitated using an antibody against hCAP-G, treated with l protein phosphatase in the presence or absence of phosphatase inhibitors, and analyzed by immunoblotting using anti-hHP1 and anti-hHP2. The results (now shown in Supplementary Fig 3C) demonstrated that the epitopes recognized by anti-hHP1 and anti-hHP2 are sensitive to phosphatase treatment. In the second set, we performed a phosphopeptide competition assay. Holo(WT) that had been preincubated with Dcond M-HSS was immunoprecipitated and subjected to immunoblotting. The membranes were triplicated and probed with anti-hHP1 in the presence of no competing peptide, hHP1 or hHP2. Similarly, another set of triplicated membranes was probed with anti-hHP2 in the presence of no competing peptide, hHP1 or hHP2. We found that the signal recognized by anti-hHP1 competed with hHP1, but not with hHP2, and that the signal recognized by anti-hHP2 competed with hHP2, but not with hHP1. The results (now shown in Supplementary Fig 3D) demonstrated the sequence specificity of the phosphoepitopes recognized by the two antibodies. The procedures for these experiments have been described in Materials and Methods.

      Because Cdk1 depletion from M-HSS creates an HSS equivalent to I-HSS, we do not consider that the suggested experiment will provide additional information.

      *Minor comments:

      1. The impact of the 19 mutations, A or D, introduced within the tail on the folding of the central helix? The idea that the negative effect of the N-tail is relieved by phosphorylation is based on the chromatin binding phenotypes exhibited by the H-N19D or H-N19A mutant holocomplexes, in which 19 amino-acids out of 80 have been modified, include one in the central helix. The authors also provide evidence that the central helix (CH) located within the tail plays a key role in the negative regulation of condensin I binding. Thus, I wonder to which extent the folding of the central helix could be impacted by the mutations introduced in the tail and notably the one within the central helix itself. Could the author assess the structure of mutated tails using Alpho-fold and/or discuss this point? *

      Response

      According to the reviewer’s suggestion, we performed structure predictions using Alphafold2, and found that neither the N19A nor N19D mutations alter the original prediction of helix formation that was made for the wild-type CH sequence. A conventional secondary structure prediction using Jpred4 reached the same conclusion.

      2. Phosphorylation of serine 70 in the central helix by Aurora-B kinase? A prior study by Tada et al. (PMID: 21633354) has shown (1) that serine 70 of the N-tail of hCAP-H is phosphorylated by Aurora-B kinase, (2) that the mutation S70A reduces the binding of condensin I to chromatin in HeLa cells and (3) that hCAP-H interacts with histone H2A in an Aurora-B dependent manner. This draws a picture in which the phosphorylation of Ser70 by Aurora-B would improve condensin I binding to chromatin by promoting an interaction between hCAP-H and histone H2A/nucleosomes. Intriguingly, Ser 70 in Tada et al. correspond to the serine residue located within the conserved central helix analysed in this study, and this Ser70 residue is mutated in the H-N19D or H-N19A holocomplexes that show reduced chromatin binding in this study. This raises the question as what could be the contribution of the S70A or S70D substitution to the chromatin binding phenotypes shown by the H-N19D or H-N19A holocomplexes. This is not discussed in the manuscript, and the authors do not cite this earlier work (PMID: 21633354) in their manuscript. Is there any reason for that? I suggest it should be cited and discussed.

      Response

      We thank the reviewer for bringing up this issue. In many respects, we do not trust the data reported by Tada et al (2011) and the resultant model they proposed. Previous and emerging lines of evidence reported from our own and other laboratories indicate that histones compete with condensins for DNA binding, strongly arguing against the possibility that histone H2A acts as a “chromatin receptor” for condensins. We formally discussed and criticized the Tada 2011 model in our previous publications, which included Shintomi et al (2015) NCB, Shintomi et al (2017) Science, Hirano (2016) Cell and Kinoshita/Hirano (2017) COCB. We thought that those were enough. That said, we also consider that the reviewer is right. The current study demonstrates that the deletion of the CAP-H N-tail accelerates, rather than decelerates, condensin I loading, providing an additional line of evidence that argues against the Tada model. A critical comparison between the Tada model and our current model would benefit the readers. In the revised manuscript, we have added the following discussion:

      In terms of the regulatory role of the CAP-H N-tail, it would be worthy to discuss the model previously proposed by Tada et al (2011). According to their model, aurora B-mediated phosphorylation of the CAP-H N-tail allows its direct interaction with the histone H2A N-tail, which in turn triggers condensin I loading onto chromatin. Accumulating lines of evidence, however, strongly argue against this model: (i) aurora B is not essential for single chromatid assembly in Xenopus egg extracts (MacCallum et al., 2002) or in a reconstitution assay (Shintomi et al., 2015); (ii) the H2A N-tail is dispensable for condensin I-dependent chromatid assembly in the reconstitution assay (Shintomi et al., 2015); (iii) even whole nucleosomes are not essential for condensin I-mediated assembly of chromatid-like structures (Shintomi et al., 2017). The current study demonstrates that the deletion of the CAP-H N-tail accelerates, rather than decelerates, condensin I loading, providing an additional piece of evidence against the model proposed by Tada et al (2011).

      3. Other minor comments - Please provide a microscope image of DNA loop in Fig. 4D.

      Response

      In the revised manuscript, we have provided a set of time-lapse images of loop extrusion events catalyzed by holo(WT) and holo(H-dN) in Fig 4E.

      *- The authors do not compare the kleisin of condensin I with the one of condensin II with respect to the features tackled in this work. Given the different behaviours condensin I and II, such comparison could be informative for the readers. *

      Response

      We thank the reviewer for this constructive comment. In the revised manuscript, we have added the following statement:

      It should also be added that CAP-H2, the kleisin subunit of condensin II, lacks the N-terminal extension that corresponds to the CAP-H N-tail. Thus, the negative regulation by the kleisin N-tail reported here is not shared by condensin II.

      *- The authors do not reference the work of Robellet et al. Genes & Dev (2015) (PMID: 25691469) on the regulation of condensin binding in budding yeast by an SMC4 phospho-tail. I suggest that the analogy should be discussed. *

      Response

      According to the reviewer’s comment, we have added the following statements at the beginning of Discussion.

      Previous studies showed that mitotic phosphorylation of Cut3/SMC4 regulates the nuclear import of condensin in fission yeast (Sutani et al. 1999) and that phosphorylation of Smc4/SMC4 slows down the dynamic turnover of condensin on mitotic chromosomes in budding yeast (Robellet et al. 2015; Thadani et al. 2018). In the current study, we have focused on the phosphoregulation of vertebrate condensin I by its kleisin subunit CAP-H.

      - In the introduction section, lane 5, the sentence "Many if not all eukaryotic species have two different condensin complexes" appears inappropriate since budding and fission yeast cells possess a single condensin complexes, similar to condensin I in term of primary amino-acid sequence.

      Response

      We thought that the original wording “Many if not all” was good enough to imply that some species, which include budding yeast and fission yeast, have only a single condensin complex. To make it clear, however, we have modified the sentence in the revised manuscript as follows:

      Many eukaryotic species have two different condensin complexes although some species including fungi have only condensin I.

      *- page 4; typo: motif I and V bind to the SMC neck and the SMC4 cap regions, respectively. Should read SMC2 neck. *

      Response

      The reviewer is right. It should read the SMC2 neck. Corrected.

      *- Are the data and the methods presented in such a way that they can be reproduced? YES - Are the experiments adequately replicated and statistical analysis adequate? YES - Are prior studies referenced appropriately? Not all of them (see above) - Are the text and figures clear and accurate? YES

      CROSS-CONSULTATION COMMENTS I consider the comments from all reviewers as helpful for the authors.

      Reviewer #1 (Significance (Required)):

      Summary Condensins are genome organisers of the family of SMC ATPase complexes and are best characterized as the drivers of mitotic chromosome assembly (condensation). It is acknowledged that condensins shape mitotic chromosomes by massively associating with DNA upon mitotic entry (loading step) and by folding chromatin fibres into arrays of loops, most likely through an ATP-dependent extrusion of DNA into loops, as seen in vitro. What remains unclear, however, are the mechanisms by which condensins load onto DNA and fold it into arrays of loops in vivo, and how these reactions are coupled with the cell cycle, i.e. restricted mostly to mitosis. Condensins are ring shaped pentamers that change conformation upon ATP-hydrolysis. In vitro studies suggest that condensins bind DNA via ATP-hydrolysis-independent, direct electrostatic contacts between condensin subunits and DNA. Such electrostatic contacts are salt-sensitive in in-vitro assays. Upon ATP-hydrolysis, condensins engage into an additional mode of binding that is resistant to high salt concentration and likely to be topological in nature. Both modes of association are necessary to form DNA loops. Vertebrates possess two types of condensin complexes, condensin I and II, each composed of a same SMC2-SMC4 ATPase core but associated with two different sets of three non-SMC subunits; a kleisin and two HEAT-repeat proteins. Condensin II is nuclear during interphase and stably binds chromatin upon mitotic entry, while condensin I is located in the cytoplasm during interphase and binds chromatin in a dynamic manner upon nuclear envelope breakdown. How the spatiotemporal control of condensin I and II is achieved remains poorly understood. Previous studies have shown that the phosphorylation of condensin I by mitotic kinases, such as CDK1, Aurora-B and Polo, play a positive role in its binding to chromatin and/or its functioning, but the underlying mechanisms remain to be characterised. In this manuscript, Shoji Tane and colleagues provide good evidence that the N-terminal tail of the human kleisin subunit of condensin I, hCAP-H, serves as a regulatory module for the cell-cycle control of condensin I binding to chromatin and chromosome shaping activity. The authors clearly show that the N-tail of CAP-H hinders the binding of condensin I to chromatin in xenopus egg extracts and, using in vitro assays, that the N-tail also hinders the topological association of condensin I with DNA and its loop extrusion activity. The authors provide additional data suggesting that the phosphorylation of the N-tail of CAP-H, in mitosis, relieves its inhibitory effect on condensin I binding. Based on their findings, Tane et al. propose a model suggesting that the N-terminal tail of CAP-H constitutes a gate keeper that maintains condensin-rings in a closed conformation that is unfavourable for topological binding to DNA, and whose locking effect is relieved in mitosis by phosphorylation.

      Taken as a whole, this work has the potential to reveal a molecular basis for the cell cycle regulation of condensin I in vertebrate cells and as such to significantly improve our understanding of the integrated functioning condensin I. The characterisation of the inhibitory effect of the N-tail on condensin binding to chromatin and to naked DNA in vitro is well described, the data are clear and robust and the results convincing. On the other hand, some of the data on the phospho-regulation appear to me as are more debatable and I think that some of the results described here deserve to be discussed in the context of previous works. Finally, I see no data in the manuscript that directly supports the mechanistic model proposed by the authors, while it seems to me that such model could have been easily tested exprimentally. Thus, I suggest that Tane and colleagues should perform a couple of relatively easy experiments to strengthen their claims and that a few omitted prior studies on the topic should be referenced and discussed. *

      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)): * The manuscript reveals that the N-terminal region of CAPH could play a role in regulating condensin I activity, using a range of in vitro methods. They propose that the N-terminal region of CAPH inhibits complex activity, and this is turned off upon deletion or phosphorylation, by using truncations, phospho-mimics or phospho-deficient mutations. While the results are interesting to the field, and helps to address the question as to how condensin complexes are controlled in a cell cycle dependent manner, some key data and controls are necessary to ensure the conclusion is robust.

      Main comments

      • What is meant by "unperturbed I-HSS" on page 7, ie membrane containing versus membrane free or condensin depleted? *

      Response

      We apologize for having created unnecessary confusion. We meant that the “unperturbed I-HSS” is the “undepleted I-HSS”. As far as the issue of membrane-containing vs membrane-free is concerned, we explicitly mentioned that “we used membrane-free I-HSS in the following experiments” several lines above. In the revised manuscript, we have revised the statement accordingly.

      In many of the protein gels eg figure 4B, the bands for SMC2 and 4 are more intense that the non-SMC components. The method for protein purification also does not include a size exclusion step to ensure sample homogeneity. Authors should perform some sort of quality control checks on samples such as analytical gel filtration or mass photometry to ensure stoichiometry/homogeneity. This is particularly important for samples eg the N19A, where activity is reduced compared to wild-type as poor protein behaviour could create false negative results.

      Response

      As the reviewer is fully aware, the reconstitution and purification of multiprotein complexes, such as condensins, is by no means an easy task. We notice that many groups in the field share common concerns about sample homogeneity and subunit stoichiometry, and that these concerns cannot completely be eliminated even after size exclusion chromatography. Because the current study handles a large number of mutant complexes, we consider that the purification by two-step column chromatography is the most practical approach. We do not notice any abnormal behaviors of holo(H-N19A) in the processes of expression and purification. It is also important to emphasize that the H-N19D mutations cause the completely opposite phenotype. Taken all together, we are confident of our current conclusions.

      That said, in the revised manuscript, we have added the following statement in Results:

      Although we cannot rule out the possibility that the introduction of multiple mutations into the N-tail causes unforeseeable adverse effects on protein conformations, these results supported the idea that ….

      • Loop extrusion assays in figure 4D-G shows no example data i.e. no pictures or videos of loops being formed. These should also be included.*

      Response

      In the revised manuscript, we have provided a set of time-lapse images of loop extrusion events catalyzed by holo(WT) and holo(H-dN) in Fig 4E.

      • Given the mutant holo(H-dN) has higher activity than wild-type, a negative control such as holo(H-dN) without ATP or holo(H-dN) ATPase deficient mutant should also be measured in loop extrusion assays, to ensure the activity is derived from the ATPase activity.*

      Response

      In the revised manuscript, we have added loop formation data for both holo(WT) and holo(H-dN) in the absence or presence of ATP (Supplementary Fig 5). We are confident that both complexes support loop extrusion strictly in an ATP-dependent manner.

      • According to the methods, this work performs the same loop extrusion assay as described in Kinoshita et al, 2022, however, in Kinoshita et al, wild type condensin I makes loops in 30-50% of DNA molecules, where in this study the percentage is less than half that. Can the author please explain the discrepancy given the same method was used?*

      Response

      First of all, we wish to remind the reviewer that the holo(WT) constructs used in the two studies are not identical: CAP-H was N-terminally HaloTagged in all constructs used in Kinoshita et al (2022), whereas the same subunit was C-terminally HaloTagged in the pair of constructs used in the current study. Because we wanted to compare the activities between the full-length CAP-H and N-terminally deleted version of CAP-H (H-dN), we reasoned that it would be inappropriate to put the HaloTag to the N-terminus of CAP-H. The difference in the constructs could explain the observed discrepancy, even if it might not be the sole reason.

      The design of the constructs was accurately described in each manuscript, but the statements were not very explicit about the positions of the HaloTag. To clarify this issue, we have added the following sentences in the revised manuscript:

      Note that the HaloTag was fused to the C-terminus of CAP-H in the current study because we wanted to investigate the effect of the N-terminal deletion of CAP-H. We used N-terminally HaloTagged CAP-H constructs in our previous study (Kinoshita et al., 2022).

      • In the concluding statement the author suggests "Upon mitotic entry, multisite phosphorylation of the N-tail relieves the stabilization, allowing the opening of the DNA entry gate, hence, the loading of condensin I onto chromosomes." This seems unlikely as fusion the N-terminus of the of the kleisin to the C-terminus of SMC2 is able to function for yeast (Shaltiel et al 2022) and condensin II (Houlard et al 2021), and equivalently in cohesin (Davidson et al 2019).*

      Response

      We appreciate the reviewer’s concern. In our view, however, the issue of the “DNA-entry gate” remains under debate in the SMC field (e.g., Higashi et al [2020] Mol Cell; Taschner and Gruber [2022] bioRxiv). For instance, Shaltiel et al (2022) demonstrated that neck-gate fusion constructs can support in vitro activities including topological loading under certain conditions, but also showed that such constructs greatly reduce the cell viability, leaving the possibility that the gate opening is required for some physiological functions.

      That said, it is true that the data reported in the current manuscript do not exclude the possibility that the SMC2 neck-kleisin interface is not used as a DNA entry gate for condensin I loading. In the revised manuscript, we have added the following statement in Discussion:

      Although our model predicts that the SMC2 neck-kleisin interface is used as a DNA entry gate, we are aware that several studies reported evidence arguing against this possibility (e.g., Houlard et al [2021]; Shaltiel et al [2022]). Our current data do not exclude other models.

      *Reviewer #2 (Significance (Required)):

      This is an interesting story that reveals new insights about condensin regulation.

      Reviewer #3 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      This paper reveals a role of an N-terminal extension of CAP-H in the regulation of condensin-I activity in Xenopus extracts using biochemical reconstitution experiments. The authors demonstrate that a motif in the N-terminal tail that is conserved in vertebrates acts as an inhibitor of condensin I activity. Using several mutant constructs, it is shown that the inhibition by this motif is in turn counteracted by the phosphorylation of neighbouring serine and threonine residues in mitosis, presumably at least in part by CdK. Mutants that have lost this inhibition are able to condense chromatin into chromatid-like structures more efficiently and to some degree even in interphase extracts. Moreover, one such mutant is characterized in detail by biochemical and biophysical experiments and shown to have increased capacity in salt-stable DNA loading and in DNA loop extrusion.

      Major comments: This is a beautiful and thorough study that is presented in a clear and concise manner. The main conclusions are well justified. No additional experiments are needed to support them. Replication and statistical analysis appear adequate. The final model is however largely speculative. Recent work has indicated that loading of yeast condensin does not require gate opening. The authors may thus want to include alternative scenarios or remain more vague. *

      Response

      This comment is related to the last comment of Reviewer#2. See above for our response.

      *The H-N19A mutant has a loss of function phenotype (possibly due to folding problem caused by 19 point mutations rather than lack of phosphorylation), the authors could consider to rescue the phenotype by also including the CH motif mutations in this construct (or make an explanatory statement in the text). *

      Response

      We understand the reviewer’s logic here, but overlaying additional mutations into the H-N19A mutations could cause an unforeseeable effect, potentially making the interpretation of the outcome complicated.

      We also wish to point out that it may be inappropriate to regard the phenotype exhibited by holo(H-N19A) as a simple loss-of-function phenotype. This is because the opposite, accelerated loading phenotype exhibited by holo(H-dN) can be regarded as a consequence of loss of negative regulation. Like holo(H-dN), the phosphomimetic mutant complex holo(H-N19D) displayed an accelerated loading phenotype, fully supporting our conclusion. In the revised manuscript, we have added the following statement in Results:

      Although we cannot rule out the possibility that the introduction of multiple mutations into the N-tail causes unforeseeable adverse effects on protein conformations, these results supported the idea that ….

      *Albeit not necessary for the main conclusions, the authors could possibly significantly strengthen their study by testing for binding partners of the N-tail and the CH motif by running AlphaFold predictions against the condensin I subunits. *

      Response

      We appreciate this constructive comment. We attempted to predict possible interactions between SMC2 and a CAP-H fragment containing its N-tail and motif I using

      ColabFold (Mirdita et al., 2022, Nat. Methods). The algorism excellently predicted the proper folding of the CAP-H motif I and its interaction with the SMC2 neck. Under this condition of predictions, however, the N-tail remained largely disordered (except for the CH), and no interaction with any part of SMC2 was predicted. The same was true when the N19D mutations were introduced in the N-tail sequence. Thus, this trial did not provide much information about the potential interaction target(s) of the CAP-H N-tail.

      *The efficiency of depletion of condensin subunits from I-HSS extracts is not documented (in contrast to M-HSS extracts - figure EV1C). While any condensin remaining in these extracts might not be active (or interfering), the authors may want to at least comment on this in the text. *

      Response

      We check the efficiency of immunodepletion every time by immunoblotting and confirm that a high level of depletion is achieved from both M-HSS and I-HSS. According to the reviewer’s comment, the following statement was placed in Materials and Methods:

      The efficiency of immunodepletion was checked every time by immunoblotting. An example of immunodepletion from M-HSS was shown in Supplemental figure 1C. We also confirmed that a similar efficiency of immunodepletion was achieved from I-HSS.

      *The authors should include information on the quantification of chromatid morphology. Is the analysis based on chromatids taken from the same images/imaging session, from technical replicates, biological replicates? *

      Response

      In the revised manuscript, we have added statements on image presentation and experimental repeats in the appropriate figure legends and methods section. During the revision process, we repeated the experiments shown in Supplementary Fig 2, and obtained the same results. In the revised manuscript, the original set of data has been replaced with the new set of data along with panel C (Quantification of the intensity of mSMC4 per DNA area).

      Minor comment: The colour scheme in Figure 5A is confusing. Use less colour? The orange and red colours are moreover quite similar.

      Response

      According to the reviewer’s comment, we have modified Figure 5A.

      *Reviewer #3 (Significance (Required)):

      The findings provide new insights into how condensin-I activity is restricted outside of mitosis. It was previously assumed that this regulation was (largely) due to the exclusion of condensin I from the nucleus prior to nuclear envelope breakdown. This study shows that another pathway is contributing to the regulation and implies that controlling condensin I activity is more important than previously appreciated. Whether all residual nuclear condensin I is inactivated, remains to be determined. The physiological impact of loss of autoinhibition on chromosome segregation and cell cycle progression also remains to be uncovered. The observed effects are robust and appear significant. Future research on condensin I using reconstitution will likely benefit from being able to control or eliminate the self-inhibition.

      This reviewer has expertise on the biochemistry and structural biology of SMC protein complexes.

      Reviewer #4 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      Mitotic chromosome formation is a cell cycle-regulated process that is crucial for eukaryotic genome stability. The chromosomal condensin complex promotes chromosome condensation, but the temporal control over condensin function is only scantly understood. In this impressive manuscript, "Cell cycle-specific loading of condensin I is regulated by the N-terminal tail of its kleisin subunit", Tane and colleagues provide important new insight into the cell cycle-regulation of condensin. The authors identify a kleisin N-tail that acts as a negative regulator of condensin's DNA interactions. Removal of this N-tail, or its cell cycle-dependent phosphorylation, relieves inhibition and activates condensin. This is a simple, yet very important story, that advances our molecular understanding of chromosome formation. The experiments are performed to a very high technical standard and support the authors conclusions. This manuscript is highly suitable for publication in any molecular biology journal, once the authors have considered the following points.

      1. Introduction. a) The authors could better explain their own prior work (Kimura et al. 1998), which has identified the condensin XCAP-D2 and XCAP-H as the targets of phosphoregulation. The current manuscript explains the role of XCAP-H phosphorylation. *

      Response

      According to the reviewer’s comment, we have added the following sentence in Introduction:

      The major targets of mitotic phosphorylation identified in these studies included the CAP-D2 and CAP-H subunits.

      1. b) Given the limited knowledge about condensin cell cycle regulation, it seems prudent to provide a brief summary of what is known. Fission yeast Smc4 phosphorylation regulates condensin nuclear import (Sutani et al. 1999), while budding yeast Smc4 phosphorylation slows down the dynamic turnover of the condensin complex on chromosomes (Robellet et al. 2015 and Thadani et al. 2018).

      Response

      We appreciate this constructive comment. According to the reviewer’s comment, we have added the following statements at the beginning of Discussion.

      Previous studies showed that mitotic phosphorylation of Cut3/SMC4 regulates the nuclear import of condensin in fission yeast (Sutani et al. 1999) and that phosphorylation of Smc4/SMC4 slows down the dynamic turnover of condensin on mitotic chromosomes in budding yeast (Robellet et al. 2015 and Thadani et al. 2018). In the current study, we have focused on the phosphoregulation of vertebrate condensin I by its kleisin subunit CAP-H.

      2. Extracts were mixed with mouse sperm nuclei. If there is a reason why mouse rather than Xenopus sperm nuclei were used, this would be interesting to know.

      Response

      The original motivation for introducing mouse sperm nuclei into Xenopus egg extracts was to test the functional contribution of nucleosomes to mitotic chromosome assembly. When mouse sperm nuclei are incubated with an extract depleted of the histone chaperone Asf1, the assembly of octasomes can be suppressed almost completely. Remarkably, we found that even under this “nucleosome-depleted” condition, mitotic chromosome-like structures can be assembled in a manner dependent on condensins (Shintomi et al., 2017, Science). Xenopus sperm nuclei cannot be used in this type of experiment because they endogenously retain histones H3 and H4 and are therefore competent in assembling octasomes even in the Asf1-depleted extract. During this study, we realized that the use of mouse sperm nuclei in Xenopus egg extracts provides additional and deep insights into the basic mechanisms of mitotic chromosome assembly. For instance, the functional contribution of condensin II to chromosome assembly could be observed more prominently when mouse sperm nuclei are used as a substrate than when Xenopus sperm nuclei are used (Shintomi et al., 2017, Science). We suspected that the slow kinetics of nucleosome assembly on the mouse sperm substrate creates an environment in favor of condensin II’s action. For these reasons, our laboratory now extensively uses mouse sperm nuclei for the functional analyses of condensin II (Yoshida et al., 2022. eLife) and other purposes (Kinoshita et al., 2022, JCB). Yoshida et al (2022) used experimental approaches analogous to the current study, and found that the deletion of the CAP-D3 C-tail, causes accelerated loading of condensin II. One of the long-term goals in our laboratory is to critically compare and contrast the actions of condensin I and condensin II in mitotic chromosome assembly. Thus, the use of the same substrate in the two complementary studies can be fully justified.

      During the preparation of this response, we realized that the readers would benefit from a brief statement about the comparison between condensin I and condensin II. In the revised manuscript, we have added the following statement in Discussion:

      It should also be added that CAP-H2, the kleisin subunit of condensin II, lacks the N-terminal extension that corresponds to the CAP-H N-tail. Thus, the negative regulation by the kleisin N-tail reported here is not shared by condensin II. Interestingly, however, a recent study from our laboratory has shown that the deletion of the CAP-D3 C-tail causes accelerated loading of condensin II onto chromatin (Yoshida et al., 2022). It is therefore possible that condensins I and II utilize similar IDR-mediated regulatory mechanisms, but they do so in different ways.

      3. Page 5. "we next focused on the conserved helix (CH) [...], that is enriched with basic amino acids." Based on the provided sequence alignment, the helix contains an equal number of both basic and acidic residues. Is it correct to characterize this helix as positively charged?

      Response

      The reviewer is right. In the revised manuscript, we have used a more neutral expression as follows:

      we next focused on the conserved helix (CH) [...], that contains conserved basic amino acids.

      4. To prevent N-tail phosphorylation, the authors create a (H-N19A) allele, referring to Cdk promiscuity. Cdk cooperation with other mitotic kinases can also be expected. Nevertheless, in case the authors created a variant with only the 4 Cdk consensus sites mutated, it would be interesting to know its consequences.

      Response

      We consider that this is a reasonable question. In our early experiments, we noticed that introduction of multiple SP/TP sites in the non-SMC subunits of condensin I including CAP-H caused a relatively mild phenotype in mitotic chromosome assembly in Xenopus egg extracts. Then we found that the deletion of the CAP-H N-tail caused a very clear, accelerated loading phenotype, prompting us to focus on the regulatory function of the CAP-H N-tail. As the reviewer correctly points out, the current study does not pinpoint the number and position of target sites involved in the proposed phosphoregulation by the CAP-H N-tail. We wish to address this important issue in the near future, along with reconstitution of the phosphoregulation using purified components.

      5. Fig EV3A, a second region of mitotic condensin phosphorylation is XCAP-D2. The authors state that XCAP-D2 phosphorylation does not impact on condensin function in their assays. This is very relevant to the current paper, so it would be good to see the Yoshida et al. 2022 Elife publication (in press) as an accompanying manuscript.

      Response

      We thank the reviewer for pointing out this issue, but it is not necessarily clear to us what the reviewer requests. In the original manuscript, we cited Yoshida et al (2022) in Discussion as follows:

      Recent studies from our laboratory showed that the deletion of the CAP-D2 C-tail, which also contains multiple SP/TP sites (Supplementary Figure 3A), has little impact on condensin I function as judged by the same and related add-back assays using Xenopus egg extracts (Kinoshita et al, 2022; Yoshida et al, 2022).

      We believe that the current statement is good enough.

      6. One of the authors' most striking results is chromosome formation in interphase egg extracts using condensin (H-dN). At the same time, condensin (H-dN) is unable to support DNA supercoiling or chromosome reconstitution with recombinant components. More emphasis might be placed on this important piece of information, and possible reasons should be discussed. Can Cdk-treatment restore condensin (H-dN) biochemical activity? If not, then condensin (H-dN) might have lost more than just an inhibitory N-tail. The cohesin N-tail is thought to fulfil a positive role during DNA loading (Higashi et al. 2020). Could it be that the condensin N-tail encompasses both positive and negative roles?

      Response

      We were also surprised to find that holo(H-dN) gains the ability to assemble mitotic chromosome-like structures in interphase extracts. It should be stressed, however, that the formation of mitotic chromosome-like structures in I-HSS requires a much higher concentration (150 nM) than the standard concentration used in M-HSS (35 nM). Thus, the deletion of the CAP-H N-tail alone cannot make the condensin I complex fully active in I-HSS. We think that the negative regulation by the CAP-H N-tail is not the sole mechanism responsible for the very tight cell cycle regulation of condensin I function. We emphasize this important point by mentioning that “our results uncover one of the multilayered mechanisms that ensure cell cycle-specific loading of condensin I onto chromosomes” in Summary.

      At the end of Discussion, we describe the limitations of the current study: “we have so far been unsuccessful in using these recombinant complexes to recapitulate positive DNA supercoiling or chromatid reconstitution, both of which require proper Cdk1 phosphorylation in vitro”. We are fully aware that full reconstitution of phosphorylation-dependent activation of condensin I in vitro is one of the most important directions in the future.

      Although we currently do not have any evidence to suggest that the H N-tail has a positive role, we do not exclude such a possibility.

      7. Here comes my main question for the authors (though I should stress that I do not expect an answer for publication in a Review Commons journal). The authors now have a unique opportunity to gain key mechanistic insight into condensin by answering the question, 'how does the kleisin N-tail inhibit condensin'? The authors allude to a model in which the N-tail interacts with Smc2 to close/obstruct the kleisin N-gate, through which the DNA likely enters the condensin ring. Can the authors biochemically recapitulate an interaction between an isolated N-tail (or N-terminal section of XCAP-H) and Smc2? Does Cdk phosphorylation alter this interaction?

      Response

      This comment is related to Comment #1 of Reviewer#1. See above for our response.

      *Minor points. 8. The condensin loop extrusion results would benefit from a supplementary movie or time-series, to illustrate the comparison. Details of how loop rate, duration and sizes were assessed should be added to the methods section. *

      Response

      In the revised manuscript, we have provided a set of time-lapse images of loop extrusion events catalyzed by holo(WT) and holo(H-dN) in Fig 4E. We have also added the following explanations for how the parameters of loop extrusion reactions were assessed in Materials and Methods:

      To determine the loop size, the fluorescence intensity of the looped DNA was divided by that of the entire DNA molecule for each image, and multiplied by the length of the entire DNA molecule (48.5 kb). The loop rate was obtained by averaging the increase in looped DNA size per second. The loop duration was calculated by measuring the time from the start of DNA loop formation until the DNA loop became unidentifiable.

      9. Figure EV3A legend, "hHP4" should probably read "hHP2".

      Response

      The reviewer is right. It should read hHP2. Corrected.

      *Reviewer #4 (Significance (Required)):

      see above *

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      Referee #4

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Mitotic chromosome formation is a cell cycle-regulated process that is crucial for eukaryotic genome stability. The chromosomal condensin complex promotes chromosome condensation, but the temporal control over condensin function is only scantly understood. In this impressive manuscript, "Cell cycle-specific loading of condensin I is regulated by the N-terminal tail of its kleisin subunit", Tane and colleagues provide important new insight into the cell cycle-regulation of condensin. The authors identify a kleisin N-tail that acts as a negative regulator of condensin's DNA interactions. Removal of this N-tail, or its cell cycle-dependent phosphorylation, relieves inhibition and activates condensin. This is a simple, yet very important story, that advances our molecular understanding of chromosome formation. The experiments are performed to a very high technical standard and support the authors conclusions. This manuscript is highly suitable for publication in any molecular biology journal, once the authors have considered the following points.

      1. Introduction.

        • a) The authors could better explain their own prior work (Kimura et al. 1998), which has identified the condensin XCAP-D2 and XCAP-H as the targets of phosphoregulation. The current manuscript explains the role of XCAP-H phosphorylation.
        • b) Given the limited knowledge about condensin cell cycle regulation, it seems prudent to provide a brief summary of what is known. Fission yeast Smc4 phosphorylation regulates condensin nuclear import (Sutani et al. 1999), while budding yeast Smc4 phosphorylation slows down the dynamic turnover of the condensin complex on chromosomes (Robellet et al. 2015 and Thadani et al. 2018).
        • Extracts were mixed with mouse sperm nuclei. If there is a reason why mouse rather than Xenopus sperm nuclei were used, this would be interesting to know.
        • Page 5. "we next focused on the conserved helix (CH) [...], that is enriched with basic amino acids." Based on the provided sequence alignment, the helix contains an equal number of both basic and acidic residues. Is it correct to characterize this helix as positively charged?
        • To prevent N-tail phosphorylation, the authors create a (H-N19A) allele, referring to Cdk promiscuity. Cdk cooperation with other mitotic kinases can also be expected. Nevertheless, in case the authors created a variant with only the 4 Cdk consensus sites mutated, it would be interesting to know its consequences.
        • Fig EV3A, a second region of mitotic condensin phosphorylation is XCAP-D2. The authors state that XCAP-D2 phosphorylation does not impact on condensin function in their assays. This is very relevant to the current paper, so it would be good to see the Yoshida et al. 2022 Elife publication (in press) as an accompanying manuscript.
        • One of the authors' most striking results is chromosome formation in interphase egg extracts using condensin (H-dN). At the same time, condensin (H-dN) is unable to support DNA supercoiling or chromosome reconstitution with recombinant components. More emphasis might be placed on this important piece of information, and possible reasons should be discussed. Can Cdk-treatment restore condensin (H-dN) biochemical activity? If not, then condensin (H-dN) might have lost more than just an inhibitory N-tail. The cohesin N-tail is thought to fulfil a positive role during DNA loading (Higashi et al. 2020). Could it be that the condensin N-tail encompasses both positive and negative roles?
        • Here comes my main question for the authors (though I should stress that I do not expect an answer for publication in a Review Commons journal). The authors now have a unique opportunity to gain key mechanistic insight into condensin by answering the question, 'how does the kleisin N-tail inhibit condensin'? The authors allude to a model in which the N-tail interacts with Smc2 to close/obstruct the kleisin N-gate, through which the DNA likely enters the condensin ring. Can the authors biochemically recapitulate an interaction between an isolated N-tail (or N-terminal section of XCAP-H) and Smc2? Does Cdk phosphorylation alter this interaction?

      Minor points.

      1. The condensin loop extrusion results would benefit from a supplementary movie or time-series, to illustrate the comparison. Details of how loop rate, duration and sizes were assessed should be added to the methods section.
      2. Figure EV3A legend, "hHP4" should probably read "hHP2".

      Significance

      see above

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      Referee #3

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      This paper reveals a role of an N-terminal extension of CAP-H in the regulation of condensin-I activity in Xenopus extracts using biochemical reconstitution experiments. The authors demonstrate that a motif in the N-terminal tail that is conserved in vertebrates acts as an inhibitor of condensin I activity. Using several mutant constructs, it is shown that the inhibition by this motif is in turn counteracted by the phosphorylation of neighbouring serine and threonine residues in mitosis, presumably at least in part by CdK. Mutants that have lost this inhibition are able to condense chromatin into chromatid-like structures more efficiently and to some degree even in interphase extracts. Moreover, one such mutant is characterized in detail by biochemical and biophysical experiments and shown to have increased capacity in salt-stable DNA loading and in DNA loop extrusion.

      Major comments:

      This is a beautiful and thorough study that is presented in a clear and concise manner. The main conclusions are well justified. No additional experiments are needed to support them. Replication and statistical analysis appear adequate. The final model is however largely speculative. Recent work has indicated that loading of yeast condensin does not require gate opening. The authors may thus want to include alternative scenarios or remain more vague.

      The H-N19A mutant has a loss of function phenotype (possibly due to folding problem caused by 19 point mutations rather than lack of phosphorylation), the authors could consider to rescue the phenotype by also including the CH motif mutations in this construct (or make an explanatory statement in the text).

      Albeit not necessary for the main conclusions, the authors could possibly significantly strengthen their study by testing for binding partners of the N-tail and the CH motif by running AlphaFold predictions against the condensin I subunits.

      The efficiency of depletion of condensin subunits from I-HSS extracts is not documented (in contrast to M-HSS extracts - figure EV1C). While any condensin remaining in these extracts might not be active (or interfering), the authors may want to at least comment on this in the text.

      The authors should include information on the quantification of chromatid morphology. Is the analysis based on chromatids taken from the same images/imaging session, from technical replicates, biological replicates?

      Minor comment:

      The colour scheme in Figure 5A is confusing. Use less colour? The orange and red colours are moreover quite similar.

      Significance

      The findings provide new insights into how condensin-I activity is restricted outside of mitosis. It was previously assumed that this regulation was (largely) due to the exclusion of condensin I from the nucleus prior to nuclear envelope breakdown. This study shows that another pathway is contributing to the regulation and implies that controlling condensin I activity is more important than previously appreciated. Whether all residual nuclear condensin I is inactivated, remains to be determined. The physiological impact of loss of autoinhibition on chromosome segregation and cell cycle progression also remains to be uncovered. The observed effects are robust and appear significant. Future research on condensin I using reconstitution will likely benefit from being able to control or eliminate the self-inhibition.

      This reviewer has expertise on the biochemistry and structural biology of SMC protein complexes.

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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      The manuscript reveals that the N-terminal region of CAPH could play a role in regulating condensin I activity, using a range of in vitro methods. They propose that the N-terminal region of CAPH inhibits complex activity, and this is turned off upon deletion or phosphorylation, by using truncations, phospho-mimics or phospho-deficient mutations.

      While the results are interesting to the field, and helps to address the question as to how condensin complexes are controlled in a cell cycle dependent manner, some key data and controls are necessary to ensure the conclusion is robust.

      Main comments

      • What is meant by "unperturbed I-HSS" on page 7, ie membrane containing versus membrane free or condensin depleted?
      • In many of the protein gels eg figure 4B, the bands for SMC2 and 4 are more intense that the non-SMC components. The method for protein purification also does not include a size exclusion step to ensure sample homogeneity. Authors should perform some sort of quality control checks on samples such as analytical gel filtration or mass photometry to ensure stoichiometry/homogeneity. This is particularly important for samples eg the N19A, where activity is reduced compared to wild-type as poor protein behaviour could create false negative results.
      • Loop extrusion assays in figure 4D-G shows no example data i.e. no pictures or videos of loops being formed. These should also be included.
      • Given the mutant holo(H-dN) has higher activity than wild-type, a negative control such as holo(H-dN) without ATP or holo(H-dN) ATPase deficient mutant should also be measured in loop extrusion assays, to ensure the activity is derived from the ATPase activity.
      • According to the methods, this work performs the same loop extrusion assay as described in Kinoshita et al, 2022, however, in Kinoshita et al, wild type condensin I makes loops in 30-50% of DNA molecules, where in this study the percentage is less than half that. Can the author please explain the discrepancy given the same method was used?
      • In the concluding statement the author suggests "Upon mitotic entry, multisite phosphorylation of the N-tail relieves the stabilization, allowing the opening of the DNA entry gate, hence, the loading of condensin I onto chromosomes." This seems unlikely as fusion the N-terminus of the of the kleisin to the C-terminus of SMC2 is able to function for yeast (Shaltiel et al 2022) and condensin II (Houlard et al 2021), and equivalently in cohesin (Davidson et al 2019)

      Significance

      This is an interesting story that reveals new insights about condensin regulation.