CBX5/G9a/H3K9me-mediated gene repression is essential to fibroblast activation during lung fibrosis.

ABSTRACT: Pulmonary fibrosis is a devastating disease characterized by accumulation of activated fibroblasts and scarring in the lung. While fibroblast activation in physiological wound repair reverses spontaneously, fibroblast activation in fibrosis is aberrantly sustained. Here we identified histone 3 lysine 9 methylation (H3K9me) as a critical epigenetic modification that sustains fibroblast activation by repressing the transcription of genes essential to returning lung fibroblasts to an inactive state. We show that the histone methyltransferase G9a (EHMT2) and chromobox homolog 5 (CBX5, also known as HP1α), which deposit H3K9me marks and assemble an associated repressor complex respectively, are essential to initiation and maintenance of fibroblast activation specifically through epigenetic repr

SUBMITTER: Ligresti G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6629126 | biostudies-literature | 2019 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature