BioProject

Monoallelic expression of autosomal genes (MAE) is a widespread epigenetic phenomenon which is poorly understood, due in part to current limitations of genome-wide approaches for assessing it. More...

Monoallelic expression of autosomal genes (MAE) is a widespread epigenetic phenomenon which is poorly understood, due in part to current limitations of genome-wide approaches for assessing it. Recently, we reported that a specific histone modification signature is strongly associated with MAE, and demonstrated that it can serve as a proxy of MAE in human lymphoblastoid cells (Nag et al. Elife. 2013 Dec 31;2:e01256). Here, we use murine cells to establish that this chromatin signature is conserved between mouse and human, and is associated with MAE in every tested cell type. Our analyses reveal extensive conservation in the identity of MAE genes between the two species. By applying MAE chromatin signature analysis to a large number of cell and tissue types, we show that the MAE state remains consistent during terminal cell differentiation and is predominant among cell-type specific genes, suggesting a link between MAE and specification of cell identity. Overall design: Chromatin immunoprecipitation with antibodies specific for histone modifications H3K27me3 and H3K36me3 and subsequent high-throughput sequencing were performed on fixed chromatin from a B-lymphoid clonal cell line, derived from 129S1/SvImJ x CAST/EiJ F1 mice and immortalized with Abelson murine leukemia virus. Less...