Oct4 binding and Histone modification profiling during OSKM-mediated 2nd reprogramming. Mus musculus

Forced expression of four transcription factors Oct4,Sox2, Klf4 and Myc (OSKM) induces somatic cell reprogramming towards pluripotency. Major efforts have been made to characterize the molecular events involved in this process. Yet, it remains elusive how gene expression change, epigenetic landscape remodelling and cell fate conversion are triggered by expression of these Yamanaka factors. To address this gap,we utilized a secondary inducible reprogramming system and performed genome-wide profilings of Oct4 binding, histone modification (H3K4me3/H3K27me3/H3K4me1/H3K27ac), and gene expression analysis during this process. Through integrative analysis, we revealed stage-specific Oct4 binding and enhancer signatures in consistence with gene expression changes, in which the initial regression of somatic program is followed by the gradual acquisition of pluripotent program. Oct4 preferatially binds to H3K4me1 marked enhancer regions and Oct4 binding is positively correlated with active mark H3K27ac. Moreover, we observed significant enhancer activation of epigenetic related genes, especially acetylation associated genes, prior to pluripotency network activation, suggesting a pivotal role of epigenetic remodelling in the process of pluripotency acquisition and maintenance. Overall design: We used ChIP-seq to explore the global changes of Oct4 binding profiling during OSKM-mediated somatic cell reprogramming. The exogenous Oct4 was tagged with 3XFlag, thus we used anti-flag antibody to monitor exogenous Oct4 changes; anti-Oct4 antibody which recognizes both endogenous and exogenous Oct4 was used to monitor total Oct4 changes during iPSC induction. In addition, we also examined genome-wide H3K4me1/H3K27ac/H3K4me3/H3K27me3/RNAPII profiling during 3Flag-OSKM 2' reprogramming.