TE-associated chromatin variation in mice livers

Chromatin accessibility is a hallmark of active regulatory function in the genome and variation of chromatin accessibility across individuals has been shown to contribute to complex traits and disease susceptibility. However, the mechanisms responsible for chromatin variation among different individuals and how this variation contributes to phenotypic diversity remain poorly understood. We examined chromatin accessibility variation in liver tissue from seven strains of adult mice that have phenotypic diversity in response to a high-fat/high-sucrose diet. Remarkably, nearly 40% of the loci with the greatest degree of chromatin variability across the strains are associated with transposable elements (TEs), with evolutionarily younger TEs being particularly enriched for regions of chromatin variation. We found that evolutionary younger and older TEs have differential chromatin accessibility profiles and are enriched for binding sites of different transcription factors, indicating the role of TEs in the evolution of regulatory networks in the liver. We also demonstrate that TE polymorphisms and epigenetic regulation of TEs contribute to regulatory variation across different strains through providing binding sites for liver transcription factors. Intriguingly, variable chromatin loci that are associated with liver metabolism are primarily TE-associated. We demonstrate that TEs contribute to regulatory variation in liver and have downstream effects on metabolism. Our data reveal TEs as a novel and important contributor to regulatory and phenotypic variation in the liver and suggest that regulatory variation at TEs is a major contributor to phenotypic variation in populations. Overall design: Examination of chromatin accessibility with FAIRE-seq in livers of male mice (A/J, AKR/J, BALB/cJ, C57BL/6J, C3H/HeJ, CBA/J, DBA/2J, BXH2/TyJ, and BXH19/TyJ) fed a high-fat, high-sucrose diet.