ChIP-seq analysis of histone modifications and RNA polymerase II at 4 stages of directed cardiac differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells

We interrogated the genome-wide occupancy of histone modifications and RNA polymerase II at several stages of an mouse embryonic stem cell to cardiomyocyte directed differentiation protocol. These four stages represent timepoints when differentiating cultures are enriched for embryonic stem cells (ESC), mesodermal cells (MES), cardiac precursors (CP), or cardiomyocytes (CM) respectively. This study revealed many dynamic patterns of histone modifications during differentiation that are coordinated with stage-specific gene expression including a novel preactivation chromatin pattern found at genes associated with cardiac function. In addition, this study identified distal enhancer elements and enriched transcription factor motifs within enhancer regions for each stage of differentiation, which were used to predict novel transcription regulatory networks. ChIP-seq analysis of histone modifications and RNA polymerase II at 4 stages of directed cardiac differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells. Each stage in biological duplicate or triplicate