Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Nag, Anwesha
• Savova, Virginia
• Fung, Ho-Lim
• Miron, Alexander
• Yuan, Guo-Cheng
• Zhang, Kun
• Gimelbrant, Alexander A

Titel

Chromatin signature of widespread monoallelic expression

Ist Teil von

• eLife, 2013-12, Vol.2, p.e01256-e01256

Ort / Verlag

England: eLife Sciences Publications Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2013

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• In mammals, numerous autosomal genes are subject to mitotically stable monoallelic expression (MAE), including genes that play critical roles in a variety of human diseases. Due to challenges posed by the clonal nature of MAE, very little is known about its regulation; in particular, no molecular features have been specifically linked to MAE. In this study, we report an approach that distinguishes MAE genes in human cells with great accuracy: a chromatin signature consisting of chromatin marks associated with active transcription (H3K36me3) and silencing (H3K27me3) simultaneously occurring in the gene body. The MAE signature is present in ∼20% of ubiquitously expressed genes and over 30% of tissue-specific genes across cell types. Notably, it is enriched among key developmental genes that have bivalent chromatin structure in pluripotent cells. Our results open a new approach to the study of MAE that is independent of polymorphisms, and suggest that MAE is linked to cell differentiation. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.01256.001.