Local G-quadruplexes are not a major determinant of altered gene expression in BLM-deficientcells

Mutations in the Blm gene can cause Bloom Syndrome, a genetic disorder characterized by genome instability and cancer predisposition. Blm encodes a helicase which was reported to resolve G-quadruplex DNA structures in vitro. The G-quadruplex resolving activity of the BLM helicase has been previously implicated in altering gene expression. However, the exact mechanisms of how G-quadruplex structures may affect gene expression remain to be elucidated. We employed experimentally defined G-quadruplex forming DNA sequences and generated transcriptomes for several Bloom Syndrome patient-derived cell lines and BLM-deficient mouse embryonic stem cells to further investigate the effect of G-quadruplexes on gene expression. Our results do not support the previous findings that G-quadruplexes located within a gene play a major role in altering its expression in BLM-deficient cells. We found concerted large-scale changes in transcript abundance, splicing, nucleosome occupancy, and phasing, that cannot be linked to the local presence of G-quadruplex sequences in either gene bodies or promotors. The investigation of genomic features associated with large-scale differences in nucleosome density highlights the rDNA locus and active enhancers as the most strongly affected regions. We hypothesize that global changes in chromatin structure rather than local G4s might mediate the transcriptome changes in the absence of BLM.