Genome-wide chromatin binding profiles for Zic1 and Geminin during neuroectodermal cell specification

Cell intrinsic factors that control neuroectoderm specification of early embryonic cells include the nucleoprotein Geminin (Gmnn) and the Zic family of zinc finger transcription factors. Gmnn modulates chromatin state to activate neural gene expression during neural cell fate acquisition, while Gmnn deficiency in the forming neural plate disrupts transcriptional programs that control neural cell specification, neural plate patterning and neurogenesis, resulting in neural tube defects. Likewise, Zic1 over-expression promotes neural gene expression, while heterozygous deletion of Zic1/4 leads to Dandy-Walker malformation, the most common congenital cerebellar malformation. During embryonic development, Geminin and Zic1 expression is enriched in neuroectoderm from gastrula stages, with broad expression in the forming CNS during post-gastrula stages, when neural tube closure and neurogenesis are initiated. To gain a greater understanding of the molecular events that regulate neural cell specification, here we used ChIP-seq to define genome-wide chromatin binding profiles for Gmnn in embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and for Gmnn and Zic1 during specification of ESCs into neuroectoderm.