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<p>Germline mutations in the chromatin remodelling protein ATRX cause a severe developmental disorder associated with α-thalassemia. In addition, <i>ATRX</i> is amongst the twenty genes most frequently mutated in cancer. How <i>ATRX</i> mutations alter gene expression remains unclear. Using the α-globin locus as a model, here we show that ATRX deficiency downregulates α-globin in a subset of cells exhibiting DNA damage. A G-rich repeat at the α-globin locus serves as a potential site of G-quadruplex formation and DNA damage. ATRX binds this repeat co-transcriptionally, and its loss increases R-loop accumulation at this site, leading to local DNA damage and transcriptional disruption <i>in cis</i>. Deletion of this repeat abolishes this effect, while targeted DNA damage reinstates it. These findings reveal a mechanism linking ATRX’s role in genome stability to transcriptional regulation and uncover a molecular basis of human genetic disease mediated via a distal G-rich repeat.</p>

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ATRX loss couples genome instability at a G-rich repeat to dysregulation of human alpha-globin expression

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

    开放获取

  • 发表日期：

    2026年2月14日

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  • Yuqi Shen,
  • Kinam Gupta,
  • Sue Mei Tan-Wong,
  • Sean Wen,
  • Christopher A. Fisher,
  • Liezel Tamon,
  • Nicholas J. Proudfoot,
  • Richard J. Gibbons,
  • Douglas R. Higgs

摘要

Germline mutations in the chromatin remodelling protein ATRX cause a severe developmental disorder associated with α-thalassemia. In addition, ATRX is amongst the twenty genes most frequently mutated in cancer. How ATRX mutations alter gene expression remains unclear. Using the α-globin locus as a model, here we show that ATRX deficiency downregulates α-globin in a subset of cells exhibiting DNA damage. A G-rich repeat at the α-globin locus serves as a potential site of G-quadruplex formation and DNA damage. ATRX binds this repeat co-transcriptionally, and its loss increases R-loop accumulation at this site, leading to local DNA damage and transcriptional disruption in cis. Deletion of this repeat abolishes this effect, while targeted DNA damage reinstates it. These findings reveal a mechanism linking ATRX’s role in genome stability to transcriptional regulation and uncover a molecular basis of human genetic disease mediated via a distal G-rich repeat.