Re-patterning of H3K27me3, H3K4me3 and DNA methylation during fibroblast conversion into induced cardiomyocytes.

ABSTRACT: Direct conversion of fibroblasts into induced cardiomyocytes (iCMs) offers an alternative strategy for cardiac disease modeling and regeneration. During iCM reprogramming, the starting fibroblasts must overcome existing epigenetic barriers to acquire the CM-like chromatin pattern. However, epigenetic dynamics along this reprogramming process have not been studied. Here, we took advantage of our recently generated polycistronic system and determined the dynamics of two critical histone marks, H3K27me3 and H3K4me3, in parallel with gene expression at a set of carefully selected cardiac and fibroblast loci during iCM reprogramming. We observed reduced H3K27me3 and increased H3K4me3 at cardiac promoters as early as day 3, paralleled by a rapid significant increase in their mRNA expression. In

SUBMITTER: Liu Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4828257 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature