DNA Methylation Dynamics During Lgr5+ Intestinal Stem Cell Differentiation (Affymetrix Arrays). Mus musculus

The identification of Lgr5 as an intestinal stem cell marker has made it possible to isolate and study primary stem cells from small intestine and skins. Applying genome-wide resequencing of bisulfite-treated genomic DNA, we profiled the DNA methylation changes of FACS-sorted Lgr5+ve stem cells and their immediate undifferentiated daughter cells from small intestine and skin. In addition to this, we also analyzed terminally differentiated villus cells. We find that terminal differentiation of an adult solid-tissue stem cell does not require DNA methylation dynamics at transcriptional start sites, but is characterized by hypo-methylation of enhancer-like domains. Overall design: We used cell fractions of intestines from Lgr5-EGFP-ires-CreERT2 mice, expressing GFP under the control of the Lgr5 promoter. RNA was isolated from several FACS-sorted cell populations, one expressing GFP at high levels (GFPhi) and the other expressing GFP at low levels (GFPlow), both from small intestine and skin. We also isolated RNA from intestinal epithelial villus cells. Differentially labelled cRNA from GFPhi, GFPlow and villus cells from three different sorts (each combining three different mice) were hybridized on Affymetrix HT MG-430 PM arrays.