PUBLICATION

Identification of cis regulatory features in the embryonic zebrafish genome through large-scale profiling of H3K4me1 and H3K4me3 binding sites

Authors
Aday, A.W., Zhu, L.J., Lakshmanan, A., Wang, J., and Lawson, N.D.
ID
ZDB-PUB-110429-3
Date
2011
Source
Developmental Biology   357(2): 450-62 (Journal)
Registered Authors
Lakshmanan, Abirami, Lawson, Nathan
Keywords
zebrafish, histone modification, chIP-Seq, Enhancer
Datasets
GEO:GSE20600
MeSH Terms
  • Animals
  • Binding Sites
  • Conserved Sequence/genetics
  • DNA, Intergenic/genetics
  • Embryo, Nonmammalian/metabolism*
  • Enhancer Elements, Genetic/genetics
  • Gene Expression Profiling
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental
  • Genome/genetics*
  • Histones/metabolism*
  • Lysine/metabolism*
  • Methylation
  • Protein Binding/genetics
  • Regulatory Sequences, Nucleic Acid/genetics*
  • Transcription Initiation Site
  • Zebrafish/embryology*
  • Zebrafish/genetics*
  • Zebrafish Proteins/genetics
  • Zebrafish Proteins/metabolism
PubMed
21435340 Full text @ Dev. Biol.
Abstract
An organism's genome sequence serves as a blueprint for the proteins and regulatory RNAs essential for cellular function. The genome also harbors cis-acting non-coding sequences that control gene expression and are essential to coordinate regulatory programs during embryonic development. However, the genome sequence is largely identical between cell types within a multi-cellular organism indicating that factors such as DNA accessibility and chromatin structure play a crucial role in governing cell-specific gene expression. Recent studies have identified particular chromatin modifications that define functionally distinct cis regulatory elements. Among these are forms of histone 3 that are mono- or tri-methylated at lysine 4 (H3K4me1 or H3K4me3, respectively), which bind preferentially to promoter and enhancer elements in the mammalian genome. In this work, we investigated whether these modified histones could similarly identify cis regulatory elements within the zebrafish genome. By applying chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by deep sequencing, we find that H3K4me1 and H3K4me3 are enriched at transcriptional start sites in the genome of the developing zebrafish embryo and that this association correlates with gene expression. We further find that these modifications associate with distal non-coding conserved elements, including known active enhancers. Finally, we demonstrate that it is possible to utilize H3K4me1 and H3K4me3 binding profiles in combination with available expression data to computationally identify relevant cis regulatory sequences flanking syn-expressed genes in the developing embryo. Taken together, our results indicate that H3K4me1 and H3K4me3 generally mark cis regulatory elements within the zebrafish genome and indicate that further characterization of the zebrafish using this approach will prove valuable in defining transcriptional networks in this model system.
Genes / Markers
Figures
Show all Figures
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Antibodies
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping