Regulation of HDAC11 gene expression in early myogenic differentiation.

Histone acetylation and deacetylation affect the patterns of gene expression in cellular differentiation, playing pivotal roles in tissue development and maintenance. For example, the intrinsic histone acetyltransferase activity of transcriptional coactivator p300 is especially required for the expression of myogenic regulatory factors including Myf5 and MyoD, and consequently for skeletal myogenesis. On the other hand, histone deacetylases (HDACs) remove the acetyl group from histones, which is critical for gene repression in stem cell fate transition. Through integrative omic analyses, we found that while some HDACs were differentially expressed at the early stage of skeletal myoblast differentiation, gene expression was significantly enhanced by nuclear receptor signaling. In addition, p300 and MyoD control expression in milieu of normal and signal-enhanced myoblast differentiation. Thus, HDAC11 may be essential to differential gene expression at the onset of myoblast differentiation.