Zhang Tiantian, Zhang Zhuqiang, Dong Qiang, Xiong Jun, Zhu Bing
National Laboratory of Biomacromolecules, CAS Center for Excellence in Biomacromolecules, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China.
College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China.
Genome Biol. 2020 Feb 21;21(1):45. doi: 10.1186/s13059-020-01957-w.
H3K27ac is well recognized as a marker for active enhancers and a great indicator of enhancer activity. However, its functional impact on transcription has not been characterized. By substituting lysine 27 in histone variant H3.3 with arginine in mouse embryonic stem cells, we diminish the vast majority of H3K27ac at enhancers. However, the transcriptome is largely undisturbed in these mutant cells, likely because the other enhancer features remain largely unchanged, including chromatin accessibility, H3K4me1, and histone acetylation at other lysine residues. Our results clearly reveal that H3K27ac alone is not capable of functionally determining enhancer activity.
H3K27ac被公认为是活性增强子的标志物以及增强子活性的重要指标。然而，其对转录的功能影响尚未得到明确描述。通过在小鼠胚胎干细胞中将组蛋白变体H3.3中的赖氨酸27替换为精氨酸，我们减少了增强子处绝大多数的H3K27ac。然而，这些突变细胞中的转录组在很大程度上未受干扰，这可能是因为其他增强子特征基本保持不变，包括染色质可及性、H3K4me1以及其他赖氨酸残基处的组蛋白乙酰化。我们的结果清楚地表明，仅H3K27ac本身并不能在功能上决定增强子活性。
