Boshans Linda L, Factor Daniel C, Singh Vijender, Liu Jia, Zhao Chuntao, Mandoiu Ion, Lu Q Richard, Casaccia Patrizia, Tesar Paul J, Nishiyama Akiko
Department of Physiology and Neurobiology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, United States.
Connecticut Institute for Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, United States.
Front Neurosci. 2019 Aug 8;13:829. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2019.00829. eCollection 2019.
Oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs), also known as NG2 glia, arise from neural progenitor cells in the embryonic ganglionic eminences that also generate inhibitory neurons. They are ubiquitously distributed in the central nervous system, remain proliferative through life, and generate oligodendrocytes in both gray and white matter. OPCs exhibit some lineage plasticity, and attempts have been made to reprogram them into neurons, with varying degrees of success. However, little is known about how epigenetic mechanisms affect the ability of OPCs to undergo fate switch and whether OPCs have a unique chromatin environment around neuronal genes that might contribute to their lineage plasticity. Our bioinformatic analysis of histone posttranslational modifications at interneuron genes in OPCs revealed that OPCs had significantly fewer bivalent and repressive histone marks at interneuron genes compared to astrocytes or fibroblasts. Conversely, OPCs had a greater degree of deposition of active histone modifications at bivalently marked interneuron genes than other cell types, and this was correlated with higher expression levels of these genes in OPCs. Furthermore, a significantly higher proportion of interneuron genes in OPCs than in other cell types lacked the histone posttranslational modifications examined. These genes had a moderately high level of expression, suggesting that the "no mark" interneuron genes could be in a transcriptionally "poised" or "transitional" state. Thus, our findings suggest that OPCs have a unique histone code at their interneuron genes that may obviate the need for erasure of repressive marks during their fate switch to inhibitory neurons.
少突胶质前体细胞(OPCs),也被称为NG2神经胶质细胞,起源于胚胎神经节隆起中的神经祖细胞,这些神经祖细胞也能产生抑制性神经元。它们广泛分布于中枢神经系统,终生保持增殖能力,并在灰质和白质中生成少突胶质细胞。OPCs表现出一定程度的谱系可塑性,人们已尝试将它们重编程为神经元,取得了不同程度的成功。然而,关于表观遗传机制如何影响OPCs进行命运转换的能力,以及OPCs在神经元基因周围是否具有独特的染色质环境从而可能有助于其谱系可塑性,我们知之甚少。我们对OPCs中中间神经元基因的组蛋白翻译后修饰进行的生物信息学分析表明,与星形胶质细胞或成纤维细胞相比,OPCs在中间神经元基因处的二价和抑制性组蛋白标记明显更少。相反,与其他细胞类型相比,OPCs在二价标记的中间神经元基因处有更高程度的活性组蛋白修饰沉积,这与这些基因在OPCs中的较高表达水平相关。此外,与其他细胞类型相比,OPCs中中间神经元基因缺乏所检测的组蛋白翻译后修饰的比例显著更高。这些基因具有中等偏高的表达水平,表明“无标记”的中间神经元基因可能处于转录“准备就绪”或“过渡”状态。因此,我们的研究结果表明,OPCs在其中间神经元基因处具有独特的组蛋白编码,这可能使得它们在向抑制性神经元进行命运转换时无需消除抑制性标记。