Department of Genetics, Royan Institute for Reproductive Biomedicine, ACECR, Tehran, Iran.
FEBS Lett. 2010 Nov 19;584(22):4661-4. doi: 10.1016/j.febslet.2010.10.041. Epub 2010 Oct 26.
The dynamics of chromatin structure are tightly regulated by multiple epigenetic mechanisms such as histone modifications and incorporation of histone variants. In the current work, differentiation of an embryonal carcinoma cell line, NT2, was induced by retinoic acid, and total histone proteins were compared throughout this process. The results showed a significant change in expression level of a variant of H1 histone named H1x. Chromatin immunoprecipitation coupled with real-time PCR analysis demonstrated a preferential incorporation of this protein in the regulatory region of Nanog, a marker gene of stemness that is significantly suppressed in differentiated cells. This finding reveals a dynamic role of H1x in differentiation, and implies a repressive role for this histone variant.
染色质结构的动力学受到多种表观遗传机制的严格调控，如组蛋白修饰和组蛋白变体的掺入。在本工作中，通过维甲酸诱导胚胎癌细胞系 NT2 的分化，并在整个过程中比较总组蛋白蛋白。结果表明，一种名为 H1x 的 H1 组蛋白变体的表达水平发生了显著变化。染色质免疫沉淀结合实时 PCR 分析表明，该蛋白优先掺入干性标志物基因 Nanog 的调控区，而在分化细胞中该基因显著受到抑制。这一发现揭示了 H1x 在分化中的动态作用，并暗示了这种组蛋白变体的抑制作用。
