This work was supported in part by the Van Andel Research Institute and a research grant from the National Institutes of Health (CA181343) to S.B.R.

1. Installing and Running ArrayNinja
<ol>
	<li>Download and install Oracle Virtual Box from www.virtualbox.org.</li>
	<li>Download and uncompress the ArrayNinja virtual machine (VM) from http://research.vai.org/Tools/arrayninja.</li>
	<li>Open Virtual Box and add the ArrayNinja VM by clicking &#39;Machine,&#39; &#39;Add,&#39; and select arrayninja.vbox from the folder where ArrayNinja VM was saved.</li>
	<li>Start ArrayNinja by selecting it inside Virtual Box and clicking the green &#39;start&#39; arrow.</li>
	<li>Virt...

Antibody reliability in biomedical research applications is paramount46,47. This is especially true in chromatin biochemistry given the position of antibodies as key tools for the majority of techniques developed to characterize the abundance and distribution of histone PTMs. The protocol presented here details an optimized pipeline for the design, fabrication, and use of peptide microarrays to analyze histone PTM antibody specificity. This pipeline has been used...

Genomic DNA is elegantly packaged inside the eukaryotic cell nucleus with histone proteins to form chromatin. The repeating subunit of chromatin is the nucleosome, which consists of 147 base pairs of DNA wrapped around an octameric core of histone proteins &#8211; H2A, H2B, H3, and H41. Chromatin is broadly organized into loosely packed euchromatin and tightly packed heterochromatin domains. The degree of chromatin compaction regulates the extent to which protein machineries can access the underlying DNA to carry out fundamental DNA-templated processes like replication, transcription, and repair.
Key regulators of genome accessibility in the context of chromatin are PTMs on the unstructured tail and core domains of histone proteins2,3. Histone PTMs function directly by influencing the structure of chromatin4 and indirectly through the recruitment of reader proteins and their associated macromolecular complexes that have chromatin remodeling, enzymatic, and scaffolding activities5. Studies of histone PTM function over the past two decades overwhelmingly suggest these marks play key roles in regulating cell fate, organismal development, and disease initiation/progression. Fueled by advances in mass spectrometry-based proteomic technology, more than 20 unique histone PTMs on more than 80 distinct histone residues have been discovered6. Notably, these modifications often occur in combinations, and consistent with the &#34;histone code&#34; hypothesis, numerous studies suggest that reader proteins are targeted to discrete regions of chromatin through recognition of specific combinations of histone PTMs7,8,9. A key challenge moving forward will be to assign functions to the growing list of histone PTMs and to determine how specific combinations of histone PTMs orchestrate the dynamic functions associated with chromatin.
Antibodies are the lynchpin reagents for the detection of histone PTMs. As such, more than 1,000 histone PTM-specific antibodies have been commercially developed for use in chromatin biochemistry research. With the rapid development of high-throughput DNA sequencing technology, these reagents are being used extensively by individual investigators and large-scale epigenomics &#34;roadmap&#34; initiatives (e.g., ENCODE and BLUEPRINT) in ChIP-seq (chromatin immunoprecipitation coupled with next-generation sequencing) pipelines to generate high-resolution spatial maps of histone PTM distribution genome-wide10,11. However, recent studies have shown that the specificity of histone PTM antibodies can be highly variable and that these reagents exhibit unfavorable properties such as off-target epitope recognition, strong positive and negative influence by neighboring PTMs, and difficulty discriminating the modification order on a particular residue (e.g., mono-, di-, or tri-methyllysine)12,13,14,15,16,17,18. Therefore, rigorous quality control of histone PTM-specific antibody reagents is necessary to accurately interpret data generated with these valuable reagents.
Microarray technology enables the simultaneous interrogation of thousands of macromolecular interactions in a high-throughput, reproducible, and miniaturized format. For this reason, a variety of microarray platforms have been created to analyze protein-DNA19,20, protein-protein 21, and protein-peptide interactions22. Indeed, histone peptide microarrays have emerged as an informative discovery platform for chromatin biochemistry research, enabling high-throughput profiling of the writers, erasers, and readers of histone PTMs15,23,24, and also for the analysis of histone antibody specificity17,25. Beyond their application in chromatin and epigenetics research, histone peptide arrays have potential utility as a diagnostic/prognostic test for systemic lupus erythematosus and other autoimmune diseases where anti-chromatin autoantibodies are generated26,27.
Here, we describe an integrated pipeline that we have developed for designing, fabricating, and querying histone peptide microarrays to generate specificity profiles for antibodies that recognize histones and their PTMs. The pipeline is facilitated by ArrayNinja, an open-source, interactive software application that we recently developed, which integrates the design and analysis stages of microarray experiments28. ArrayNinja works best in Google Chrome. Briefly, a robotic contact microarray printer is used to deposit a library of biotin-conjugated histone peptides at defined positions on streptavidin-coated glass microscope slides. Arrays can then be used in a competitive and parallel assay format to interrogate antibody-epitope interactions (Figure 1). The peptide library consists of hundreds of unique synthetic peptides harboring PTMs (lysine acetylation, lysine/arginine methylation, and serine/threonine phosphorylation) alone and in relevant combinations largely derived from proteomics datasets. Methods for peptide synthesis and validation are detailed elsewhere23. Data generated from our ongoing histone PTM antibody screening efforts utilizing this array platform are archived on a public web resource, the Histone Antibody Specificity Database (www.histoneantibodies.com). Notably, histone peptide microarrays fabricated with variations of this protocol have also been used extensively to characterize the activity of histone PTM reader domains8,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37 and more recently to profile histone PTM writer and eraser activities24.
<img alt="Figure 1" class="xfigimg" src="/files/ftp_upload/55912/55912fig1.jpg" /> 
Figure 1: Cartoon Depiction of the Stepwise Procedure for Antibody Screening on a Histone Peptide microarray. Biotinylated histone peptides harboring defined post-translational modifications (red and blue circles) are co-printed with biotin-fluorescein on streptavidin-coated glass. Positive interactions are visualized as red fluorescence. <a href="http://cloudflare.jove.com/files/ftp_upload/55912/55912fig1large.jpg" target="_blank">Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.</a>

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="746">
	<tbody>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:255px;">Printing Buffer</td>
			<td style="width:107px;">ArrayIt</td>
			<td style="width:105px;">PPB</td>
			<td style="width:281px;"></td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:255px;">BSA</td>
			<td style="width:107px;">Omnipure</td>
			<td align="right" style="width:105px;">2390</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="42">
			<td height="42" style="height:42px;width:255px;">Streptavidin-coated glass microscope slides</td>
			<td style="width:107px;">Greiner Bio-one</td>
			<td>439003-25</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="42">
			<td height="42" style="height:42px;width:255px;">polypropylene 384 well plate</td>
			<td style="width:107px;">Greiner Bio-one</td>
			<td align="right" style="width:105px;">784201</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:255px;">Biotin-fluorescein</td>
			<td style="width:107px;">Sigma</td>
			<td align="right" style="width:105px;">53608</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:255px;">contact microarray printer</td>
			<td style="width:107px;">Aushon</td>
			<td align="right" style="width:105px;">2470</td>
			<td style="width:281px;">Aushon 2470 Microarray Printer</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="42">
			<td height="42" style="height:42px;width:255px;">contact microarray printer</td>
			<td style="width:107px;">Gene Machines</td>
			<td style="width:105px;">OmniGrid 100</td>
			<td style="width:281px;">OmniGrid Microarray Printer</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:255px;">PBS</td>
			<td style="width:107px;">Invitrogen</td>
			<td align="right" style="width:105px;">14190</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:255px;">Blocking Buffer</td>
			<td style="width:107px;">ArrayIt</td>
			<td style="width:105px;">SBB</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:255px;">Hydrophobic wax pen</td>
			<td style="width:107px;">Vector Labs</td>
			<td style="width:105px;">H-4000</td>
			<td>ImmEdge Hydrophobic Barrier PAP Pen</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:255px;">Silicon Gasket</td>
			<td style="width:107px;">Grace Bio-labs</td>
			<td align="right" style="width:105px;">622511</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="42">
			<td height="42" style="height:42px;width:255px;">Hybridization Vessel</td>
			<td style="width:107px;">Thermo Scientific</td>
			<td align="right">267061</td>
			<td>or similar vessel</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="42">
			<td height="42" style="height:42px;width:255px;">Fluorescent-dye conjugated secondary antibody</td>
			<td style="width:107px;">Life Technologies</td>
			<td>A-21244</td>
			<td style="width:281px;">Alexa Fluor 647 (anti-rabbit)</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="42">
			<td height="42" style="height:42px;width:255px;">Fluorescent-dye conjugated secondary antibody</td>
			<td style="width:107px;">Life Technologies</td>
			<td>A-21235</td>
			<td style="width:281px;">Alexa Fluor 647 (anti-mouse)</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:255px;">Wax Imprinter</td>
			<td style="width:107px;">ArrayIt</td>
			<td>MSI48</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:255px;">Tween-20</td>
			<td style="width:107px;">Omnipure</td>
			<td align="right" style="width:105px;">9490</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:255px;">Microarray Scanner</td>
			<td style="width:107px;">Innopsys</td>
			<td style="width:105px;">InnoScan 1100AL</td>
			<td>or equivalent microarray scanner</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:255px;">EipTitan Histone Peptide Microarray</td>
			<td style="width:107px;">Epicypher</td>
			<td align="right" style="width:105px;">112001</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="42">
			<td height="42" style="height:42px;width:255px;">AbSurance Pro Histone Peptide Microarray</td>
			<td style="width:107px;">Millipore</td>
			<td align="right" style="width:105px;">16668</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:255px;">MODified Histone Peptide Array</td>
			<td style="width:107px;">Active Motif</td>
			<td align="right" style="width:105px;">13001</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:255px;">Histone Code Peptide Microarrays</td>
			<td style="width:107px;">JPT</td>
			<td style="width:105px;">His_MA_01</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:255px;">Wax</td>
			<td style="width:107px;">Royal Oak</td>
			<td style="width:105px;">GulfWax</td>
			<td>for wax imprinter</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="42">
			<td height="42" style="height:42px;width:255px;">Humidified Microarray Slide Hybridization Chamber</td>
			<td style="width:107px;">VWR</td>
			<td style="width:105px;">97000-284</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="42">
			<td height="42" style="height:42px;width:255px;">High throughput microscope slide washing chamber</td>
			<td style="width:107px;">ArrayIt</td>
			<td style="width:105px;">HTW</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:255px;">Microscope slide centrifuge</td>
			<td style="width:107px;">VWR</td>
			<td>93000-204</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:255px;">Antibody 1</td>
			<td>Abcam</td>
			<td align="right" style="width:105px;">8898</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:255px;">Antibody 2</td>
			<td style="width:107px;">Millipore</td>
			<td style="width:105px;">07-473</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="64">
			<td height="64" style="height:64px;width:255px;">Biotinylated histone peptide</td>
			<td style="width:107px;">EpiCypher</td>
			<td>12-0001</td>
			<td style="width:281px;">Example peptide. Similar peptides with various modifications are available from several commercial sources.</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:255px;">ImageMagick</td>
			<td style="width:107px;"></td>
			<td style="width:105px;"></td>
			<td>https://www.imagemagick.org/script/index.php</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:255px;">ArrayNinja</td>
			<td style="width:107px;"></td>
			<td style="width:105px;"></td>
			<td>https://rothbartlab.vai.org/tools/</td>
		</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>

analysis of histone antibody specificity with peptide microarrays

Post-translational modifications (PTMs) on histone proteins are widely studied for their roles in regulating chromatin structure and gene expression. The mass production and distribution of antibodies specific to histone PTMs has greatly facilitated research on these marks. As histone PTM antibodies are key reagents for many chromatin biochemistry applications, rigorous analysis of antibody specificity is necessary for accurate data interpretation and continued progress in the field. This protocol describes an integrated pipeline for the design, fabrication and use of peptide microarrays for profiling the specificity of histone antibodies. The design and analysis aspects of this procedure are facilitated by ArrayNinja, an open-source and interactive software package we recently developed to streamline the customization of microarray print formats. This pipeline has been used to screen a large number of commercially available and widely used histone PTM antibodies, and data generated from these experiments are freely available through an online and expanding Histone Antibody Specificity Database. Beyond histones, the general methodology described herein can be applied broadly to the analysis of PTM-specific antibodies.

This protocol has been used to design and fabricate a peptide microarray platform for the analysis of histone PTM antibody specificity. The array queries a library of more than 300 unique peptide features (20 - 40 residues in length) representing many of the known combinations of PTMs found on core and variant histone proteins38. This pipeline has been a workhorse for the screening of many widely used and commercially available histone PTM antibodies, and full data...

Watch this Scientific Journal Video about Analysis of Histone Antibody Specificity with Peptide Microarrays at JoVE.com

Analysis of Histone Antibody Specificity with Peptide Microarrays

This manuscript describes methods for applying peptide microarray technology to specificity profiling of antibodies that recognize histones and their post-translational modifications.

Post-translational modifications (PTMs) on histone proteins are widely studied for their roles in regulating chromatin structure and gene expression. The ...

The goal of this video is to describe an integrated pipeline for the design fabrication and use of peptide microarrays for profiling the specificities of histone antibodies. Antibodies that recognize histones and their diverse post-translational modifications are key reagents in chromatin biochemistry research. We rely on these tools to deepen our understanding of histone modification function.Recent studies reveal inconsistencies in histone antibody behavior. As antibody choice is the most critical element in epigenetics experiments, vigorous incomprehensive quality control measures are demanded for these reagents. Here, we demonstrate an integrated pipeline we'd developed for designing, fabricating and analyzing peptide microarrays to generate specificity profiles for antibodies that recognize histones and their post-translational modifications.The pipeline is facilitated by Array Ninja, an open source interactive software application that we developed, which integrates the design and analysis stages of microarray experiments. To begin designing the array slide, under the plan a slide layout heading, select the microarray printer that will be used. Then, type, empty in the load plate field and press enter.Set the spot diameter to 275 micrometers and the spot spacing to 100 micrometers. Fill in the remaining parameters appropriately for the experiment, ensuring that the layout allows for sufficient replicates. At the resulting layout preview, mouse over each unique peptide feature on the slide and enter a feature identifier in the popup text box.Once each unique feature has been labeled, click populate. Name the slide layout, and click commit your plate to save the layout and generate a map at the physical locations of each feature in the source plates. Guided by the source plate map, load one to two microliters of each peptide feature into the designated wells of one or more 384 wells, small volume plates, dilute each feature 10 fold with 1x protein microarray printing buffer, supplemented with 1%bovine serum albumin and five micrograms per microliter fluorescin labeled biotin.Then, centrifuge the plates at 500 x G at room temperature for two minutes. Next, empty the waste container at the microarray printer. Fill the washed solution in humidifier containers with sterile distilled water.Enter the array slide parameters in the microarray printer software. Set the washing procedure to a one second wash with the single immersion, the post washed to redip the pins five times, and the humidity to 60%Then, insert encoated glass slides into the substrate platinums. Load the platinums into the platinum elevator.Insert the source plates into the plate holders and load the holders into the source plate elevator. Run the printing process, then, remove the substrate platinums from the instrument. Block the printed slides with 1x protein microarray blocking buffer for 30 minutes while shaking.Then, wash the slides in room temperature, pH 7.6 phosphate buffered saline for 10 minutes. Repeat the wash with a fresh batch of PBS. Dry the slides by centrifugation for 30 seconds at room temperature.Next, pre-heat a microarray wax imprinter at 85 degrees celsius for 30 minutes, or until the wax has melted. Then, insert a slide printed side down, into the holder and align the holder with the imprinter mold. Bring the mold into contact with the slide and hold for two seconds, then, quickly remove the slide from the holder and inspect the wax borders to verify that the arrays are properly enclosed.Store the partitioned slides at four degrees celsius, in a dry dark area. To begin the hybridization procedure, place a partitioned array slide in a plastic dish and cover the slide with hybridization buffer. Equilibrate the slide for 30 minutes at four degree celsius, while shaking at low speed.Dry the slide by spinning in a microarray slide centrifuge at room temperature. Then, add five microliters of each histone PTM antibody solution to at least two wells of the array and incubate at four degree celsius for one hour. Following incubation, remove the antibody solution and wash the array with cold PBS three times for five minutes each at four degrees celsius.Next, incubate the array in a fluorescent dye-conjugated secondary antibody solution. For 30 minutes at four degrees celsius, in the absence of light. Wash the slide three times with cold PBS as before.Dip the array in room temperature 0.1x PBS to remove excess salt and dry the slide by brief centrifugation at room temperature. Image the slide with a microarray scanner at a resolution of at least, 25 microns. To begin the analysis, use image processing software to merge the single channel files from the microarray scanner.Then, open Array Ninja and select the appropriate microarray printer under the, to quantify images header. Fill in the name of the same slide layout in the load plate dialog box, and press enter. Load the merged image file, and adjust the contrast, brightness and mid point as desired.Fill in the array scanner resolution, adjust the top and side margins to align slide layout grid with the image. To analyze a set of wells as replicates or perform other selective analysis, fill in the well coordinates in the iPin, jPin, and subA fields and press enter. Click to toggle zoom, to display a magnified image of the area under the cursor.Then, click spot seek and wait for the process to finish. Repeat the seek function as needed to center the grid circles on the array spots. Reference spots can be selected by pressing the R key and spot showing debris or widely bearing morphology can be deactivated by pressing the A key while hovering over the spot.Once the background reference spots have been selected, and spots with pore morphology or contamination have been deactivated, click populate, followed by, submit to perform the quantification. A bar graph and table will be displayed in a new page. The binding specificities of two histone PTM antibodies were evaluated using this method.A histone PTM antibody designed to target trimethylated lysine 9 on histone H3 was also found to bind to three other trimethylated lysine groups. A silylation of neighboring lysine residues was observed to positively influence targeting of lysine 9 on H3.A histone PTM antibody targeting trimethylated lysine 4 on histone H3, was found to interact with singlely methylated and dimethylated lysine 4 on H3 as well. Phosphorelation of the neighboring three anine six, was observed to negatively impact binding at lysine four in this assay.This pipeline has been used to screen many of the most widely used, commercially available histone antibodies and data generated from these experiments is freely available through the histone antibody specificity database. Variations to this pipeline have been previously described for the analysis of histone readers, writers and erasers, modifying this platform before utility beyond epigenetics research could be easily for any printable library of interest. Several histone peptide microarray platforms are available commercially for users who do not have access to the specialized equipment needed to synthesize peptides and fabricate arrays.

analysis-of-histone-antibody-specificity-with-peptide-microarrays

Research

JoVE Journal

Biochemistry

39.3K vistas.  Van Andel Research Institute. The goal of this video is to describe an integrated pipeline for the design fabrication and use of peptide microarrays for profiling the specificities of histone antibodies. Antibodies that recognize histones and their diverse post-translational modifications are key reagents in chromatin biochemistry research. We rely on these tools to deepen our understanding of histone modification function.Recent studies reveal inconsistencies in histone antibody behavior. As antibody choice is the...