Principles of nucleation of H3K27 methylation during embryonic development

During embryonic development, maintenance of cell identity and lineage commitment requires the Polycomb-group PRC2 complex, which catalyzes histone H3 K27 trimethylation (H3K27me3). However, the developmental origins of this regulation are unknown. Here, we report on H3K27me3 deposition dynamics in Xenopus embryos, on sequence elements that initiate deposition during pluripotency, and the sequence characteristics that segregate Polycomb-regulated domains from the rest of the genome. Strikingly, although PRC2 binds widely to active enhancers, H3K27me3 is only deposited at a small subset of these sites. Using a Support Vector Machine algorithm these sequences can be predicted accurately on basis of DNA sequence alone, with a sequence signature conserved between humans, frog and fish. The results suggest a genetic-default model in which genomic sequence constrains Polycomb regulation. ChIP-seq profiles of three histone modifications (H3K4me3, H3K27me3 and H3K4me1) and RNA Polymerase II, EZH2 and Jarid2 of Xenopus tropicalis embryos during development