Project description:CpG island elements are associated with most mammalian gene promoters, yet how they contribute to gene regulation remains poorly understood. Recently it has become clear that a subset of CpG islands in embryonic stem cells can act as polycomb response elements and are recognized by the polycomb silencing systems to regulate the expression of genes involved in pluripotency and early developmental transcription programs. How CpG islands function mechanistically as nucleation sites for polycomb repressive complexes remains unknown. Here we discover that the KDM2B protein, by virtue of its ZF-CxxC DNA binding domain, specifically recognizes non-methylated DNA in CpG islands elements genome-wide. Through a physical interaction with the polycomb repressive complex 1 (PRC1), KDM2B targets PRC1 to CpG islands where it contributes to H2AK119ub1 and gene repression at a subset of polycomb targets. Unexpectedly, we also find that CpG islands are occupied by low levels of PRC1 throughout the genome, suggesting that the KDM2B-PRC1 complex may sample CpG island associated genes for susceptibility to polycomb mediated silencing. These observations demonstrate an unexpected and direct link between recognition of CpG islands by KDM2B and targeting of the polycomb repressive system. This provides the basis for a new model describing the functionality of CpG islands as mammalian PREs. ChIP-Seq to compare KDM2A vs. KDM2B genome-wide binding profiles and to understand the contribution of KDM2B to RING1B nucleation. Binding of Kdm2a and Kdm2b to the genome was examined in wildtype mESC, and Kdm2b and Ring1b in mESC where Kdm2b has been stably knocked down by shRNA.
Project description:CpG island elements are associated with most mammalian gene promoters, yet how they contribute to gene regulation remains poorly understood. Recently it has become clear that a subset of CpG islands in embryonic stem cells can act as polycomb response elements and are recognized by the polycomb silencing systems to regulate the expression of genes involved in pluripotency and early developmental transcription programs. How CpG islands function mechanistically as nucleation sites for polycomb repressive complexes remains unknown. Here we discover that the KDM2B protein, by virtue of its ZF-CxxC DNA binding domain, specifically recognizes non-methylated DNA in CpG islands elements genome-wide. Through a physical interaction with the polycomb repressive complex 1 (PRC1), KDM2B targets PRC1 to CpG islands where it contributes to H2AK119ub1 and gene repression at a subset of polycomb targets. Unexpectedly, we also find that CpG islands are occupied by low levels of PRC1 throughout the genome, suggesting that the KDM2B-PRC1 complex may sample CpG island associated genes for susceptibility to polycomb mediated silencing. These observations demonstrate an unexpected and direct link between recognition of CpG islands by KDM2B and targeting of the polycomb repressive system. This provides the basis for a new model describing the functionality of CpG islands as mammalian PREs.
Project description:Polycomb group (PcG) proteins are required for normal differentiation and development, and their activity is found deregulated in cancer. PcG proteins are involved in gene silencing, however, whether they initiate or maintain transcriptional repression is a subject of debate. Here, we show that knockout of the Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) does not lead to significant gene expression changes in mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs), and that it is dispensable for initiating silencing of target genes during differentiation. Transcriptional inhibition in mESCs is sufficient to induce genome-wide ectopic PRC2 recruitment to endogenous PcG target genes found in other tissues. PRC2 binding analysis shows that it is restricted to nucleosome-free CpG islands (CGIs) of un-transcribed genes. Our results show that it is the transcriptional state that governs PRC2 binding, and we propose that it binds by default to non-transcribed CGI genes to maintain their silenced state and to protect cell identity. in vivo Trancription Capture-sequencing (iTC-seq) time-course experiments during transcriptional inhibition with either DRB (0h, 2h and 5h) or Triptolide (0h, 1h and 2h) treatment of Mus musculus wild-type E14 Embryonic Stem Cells with two biological replicates per condition.
Project description:In mouse development, long-term silencing by CpG island DNA methylation is specifically targeted to germline genes, however the molecular mechanisms of this specificity remain unclear. Here we demonstrate that the transcription factor E2F6, a member of the polycomb repressive complex 1.6 (PRC1.6), is critical to target and initiate epigenetic silencing at germline genes in early embryogenesis. Genome-wide, E2F6 binds preferentially to CpG islands in embryonic cells. E2F6 cooperates with MGA to silence a subgroup of germline genes in mouse embryonic stem cells and in vivo, a function that critically depends on the E2F6 marked box domain. Inactivation of E2f6 leads to a failure to deposit CpG island DNA methylation at these genes during implantation. Furthermore, E2F6 is required to initiate epigenetic silencing in early embryonic cells but becomes dispensable for the maintenance in differentiated cells. Our findings elucidate the mechanisms of epigenetic targeting of germline genes and provide a paradigm for how transient repression signals by DNA-binding factors in early embryonic cells are translated into long term epigenetic silencing during mammalian development.