Open AccessModelling epigenetic regulation of gene expression in 12 human cell types reveals combinatorial patterns of cell‐type‐specific genes
Author(s) -
Lu Yiming,
Qu Wubin,
Min Bo,
Liu Zheyan,
Chen Changsheng,
Zhang Chenggang
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
iet systems biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.367
H-Index - 50
eISSN - 1751-8857
pISSN - 1751-8849
DOI - 10.1049/iet-syb.2013.0042
Subject(s) - histone , epigenetics , biology , multicellular organism , regulation of gene expression , cell type , gene expression , gene , computational biology , genetics , promoter , cell , microbiology and biotechnology
The maintenance of the diverse cell types in a multicellular organism is one of the fundamental mysteries of biology. Modelling the dynamic regulatory relationships between the histone modifications and the gene expression across the diverse cell types is essential for the authors to understand the mechanisms of the epigenetic regulation. Here, the authors thoroughly assessed the histone modification enrichment profiles at the promoters and constructed quantitative models between the histone modification abundances and the gene expression in 12 human cell types. The author's results showed that the histone modifications at the promoters exhibited remarkably cell‐type‐dependent variability in the cell‐type‐specific (CTS) genes. They demonstrated that the variable profiles of the modifications are highly predictive for the dynamic changes of the gene expression across all the cell types. Their findings revealed the close relationship between the combinatorial patterns of the histone modifications and the CTS gene expression. They anticipate that the findings and the methods they used in this study could provide useful information for the future studies of the regulatory roles of the histone modifications in the CTS genes.