The Autism Risk Factor CHD8 Is a Chromatin Activator in Human Neurons and Functionally Dependent on the ERK-MAPK Pathway Effector ELK1

Abstract The chromodomain helicase DNA-binding protein CHD8 is among the most frequently found de-novo mutations in autism spectrum disorder (ASD)1-4. Despite its prominent disease involvement, little is known about its molecular function in the human brain. CHD8 is believed to be a chromatin regulator, but mechanisms for its genomic targeting is also unclear. To elucidate the role of CHD8 in human neurons, we generated conditional loss-of-function alleles in pluripotent stem cells. Chromatin accessibility and transcriptional profiling showed that CHD8 is a potent chromatin opener and transcriptional activator of its direct neuronal targets, including a distinct group of ASD genes. We found the chromatin targeting of CHD8 to be highly context dependent. In human neurons, CHD8 was preferentially bound at promoter sequences which were significantly enriched in ETS motifs. Indeed, the chromatin state of ETS motif-containing promoters was preferentially affected upon loss of CHD8. Among the many ETS transcription factors, we found ELK1 to be the best correlated with CHD8 expression in primary human fetal and adult cortical neurons and most highly expressed in our ES cell-derived neurons. Remarkably, ELK1 was necessary to recruit CHD8 specifically to ETS motif-containing sites. These findings imply the functional cooperativity between ELK1, a key downstream factor of the MAPK/ERK pathway, and CHD8 on chromatin involvement in human neurons. THEREFORE, the MAPK/ERK/ELK1 axis may also play a role in the pathogenesis caused by CHD8 mutations5 .