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Loss of MLL3/4 decouples enhancer H3K4 monomethylation, H3K27 acetylation, and gene activation [RNA-Seq]

ABSTRACT: Enhancers are essential in defining cell fates through the control of cell type specific gene expression. Enhancer activation is a multi-step process involving chromatin remodelers and modifiers. One of these steps is monomethylation of histone H3 lysine 4 (H3K4m1) by MLL3 (KMT2C) and MLL4 (KMT2D) is thought to be critical for enhancer activation and cognate gene expression including through the recruitment of acetyltransferases targeting H3K27. Here we test this model by evaluating the impact of MLL3/4 loss on chromatin states and gene expression during early embryonic stem cell (ESC) differentiation. We find that MLL3/4 activity is required at most if not all sites that normally gain or lose H3K4m1, but infrequently at sites that remain unchanged during this transition. This requirement extends to H3K27 acetylation (H3K27a) at most transitional sites. Unexpectedly, many sites gain H3K27a independent of MLL3/4 or H3K4m1 including enhancers regulating key factors in early differentiation. Furthermore, despite the failure to gain active histone marks at thousands of enhancers, transcriptional activation of nearby genes is largely unaffected, thus uncoupling enhancer regulation from transcription during this transition. These data challenge current models of enhancer activation and imply distinct mechanisms between stable and dynamically changing enhancers. Moreover, the data suggest limited roles for enhancers in transcriptional regulation in early ESC differentiation. Collectively, our study highlights gaps in knowledge about the steps and epistatic relationships of enzymes necessary for enhancer activation and cognate gene transcription.

ORGANISM(S): Mus musculus

PROVIDER: GSE212948 | GEO | 2023/01/23

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:FOXA1 is a pioneer factor that is important in hormone dependent cancer cells to stabilise nuclear receptors, such as estrogen receptor (ER) to chromatin. FOXA1 binds to enhancers regions that are enriched in H3K4mono- and dimethylation (H3K4me1, H3K4me2) histone marks and evidence suggests that these marks are requisite events for FOXA1 to associate with enhancers to initate subsequent gene expression events. However, exogenous expression of FOXA1 has been shown to induce H3K4me1 and H3K4me2 signal at enhancer elements and the order of events and the functional importance of these events is not clear. We performed a FOXA1 Rapid Immunoprecipitation Mass Spectrometry of Endogenous Proteins (RIME) screen in ERα-positive MCF-7 breast cancer cells in order to identify FOXA1 interacting partners and we found histone-lysine N-methyltransferase (MLL3) as the top FOXA1 interacting protein. MLL3 is typically thought to induce H3K4me3 at promoter regions, but recent findings suggest it may contribute to H3K4me1 deposition, in line with our observation that MLL3 associates with an enhancer specific protein. We performed MLL3 ChIP-seq in breast cancer cells and unexpectedly found that MLL3 binds mostly at non-promoter regions enhancers, in contrast to the prevailing hypothesis. MLL3 was shown to occupy regions marked by FOXA1 occupancy and as expected, H3K4me1 and H3K4me2. MLL3 binding was dependent on FOXA1, indicating that FOXA1 recruits MLL3 to chromatin. Motif analysis and subsequent genomic mapping revealed a role for Grainy head like protein-2 (GRHL2) which was shown to co-occupy regions of the chromatin with MLL3. Regions occupied by all three factors, namely FOXA1, MLL3 and GRHL2, were most enriched in H3K4me1. MLL3 silencing decreased H3K4me1 at enhancer elements, but had no appreciable impact on H3K4me3 at enhancer elements. We identify a complex relationship between FOXA1, MLL3 and H3K4me1 at enhancers in breast cancer and propose a mechanism whereby the pioneer factor FOXA1 can interact with a chromatin modifier MLL3, recruiting it to chromatin to facilitate the deposition of H3K4me1 histone marks, subsequently demarcating active enhancer elements.

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Loss of MLL3/4 decouples enhancer H3K4 monomethylation, H3K27 acetylation, and gene activation [RNA-Seq]

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