Vitamin C induces Tet-dependent DNA demethylation in ES cells to promote a blastocyst-like methylome [MeDIP-Seq]
DNA methylation is a heritable epigenetic modification involved in gene silencing, imprinting, and the suppression of retrotransposons. Global DNA demethylation occurs in the early embryo and the germline and may be mediated by Tet (ten-eleven-translocation) enzymes, which convert 5-methylcytosine (mC) to 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (hmC). Tet enzymes have been extensively studied in mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells, which are generally cultured in the absence of Vitamin C, a potential co-factor for Fe(II) 2-oxoglutarate dioxygenase enzymes like Tets. Here we report that addition of Vitamin C to ES cells promotes Tet activity leading to a rapid and global increase in hmC. This is followed by DNA demethylation of numerous gene promoters and up-regulation of demethylated germline genes. Tet1 binding is enriched near the transcription start site (TSS) of genes affected by Vitamin C treatment. Importantly, Vitamin C, but not other antioxidants, enhances the activity of recombinant human Tet1 in a biochemical assay and the Vitamin C-induced changes in hmC and mC are entirely suppressed in Tet1/2 double knockout (Tet DKO) ES cells. Vitamin C has the strongest effects on regions that gain methylation in cultured ES cells compared to blastocysts and in vivo are methylated only after implantation. In contrast, imprinted regions and intracisternal A-particle (IAP) elements, which are resistant to demethylation in the early embryo, are resistant to Vitamin C-induced DNA demethylation. Collectively, this study establishes that Vitamin C is a direct regulator of Tet activity and DNA methylation fidelity in ES cells. Overall design: Oct4-GiP mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells were cultured in the presence or absence of Vitamin C (L-ascorbic acid 2-phosphate, 100 µg/ml) for 12 or 72 hours. Cells were maintained in N2B27 medium supplemented with LIF (1000 U/ml), MEK inhibitor PD0325901 (1 µM), and GSK3ß inhibitor CHIR99021 (3 µM). Genomic DNA was used for DNA immunoprecipitation with antibodies against 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (hmC) or 5-methylcytosine (mC).  Immunoprecipitated DNA was adaptor-ligated for paired-end sequencing on an Illumina HiSeq and sequence reads were aligned to the mm9 mouse reference genome for analysis.