PHF8 and REST/NRSF co-occupy gene promoters to regulate proximal gene expression

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 4; no. 1; p. 5008
• Main Authors: Wang, Juan, Lin, Xueqiu, Wang, Su, Wang, Chenfei, Wang, Qixuan, Duan, Xikun, Lu, Peng, Wang, Qian, Wang, Chengyang, Liu, X. Shirley, Huang, Jinyan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 23-05-2014; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 38/39; 49/15; 631/114/2163; 631/208/177; Cells, Cultured; Chromatin; Chromatin - genetics; Chromatin Immunoprecipitation; DNA-directed RNA polymerase; Gene expression; Gene Expression Regulation; Histone Demethylases - genetics; Histone Demethylases - metabolism; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Immunoprecipitation; Lysine; multidisciplinary; Nucleotide Motifs - genetics; Plant diseases; Promoter Regions, Genetic - genetics; Promoters; Repressor Proteins - genetics; Repressor Proteins - metabolism; REST protein; RNA polymerase; RNA Polymerase II - genetics; RNA Polymerase II - metabolism; Science; Transcription; Transcription Factors - genetics; Transcription Factors - metabolism
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/srep05008

Chromatin regulators play an important role in the development of human diseases. In this study, we focused on Plant Homeo Domain Finger protein 8 (PHF8), a chromatin regulator that has attracted special concern recently. PHF8 is a histone lysine demethylase ubiquitously expressed in nuclei. Mutations of PHF8 are associated with X-linked mental retardation. It usually functions as a transcriptional co-activator by associating with H3K4me3 and RNA polymerase II. We found that PHF8 may associate with another regulator, REST/NRSF, predominately at promoter regions via studying several published PHF8 chromatin immunoprecipitation-sequencing (ChIP-Seq) datasets. Our analysis suggested that PHF8 not only activates but may also repress gene expression.