The analysis of systematic gene regulation in skeletal muscle differentiation

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26290064
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Partial Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Genome biology
• Research Institution: Kyushu University
• Principal Investigator: Ohkawa Yasuyuki 九州大学, 生体防御医学研究所, 教授 (80448430)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 骨格筋分化 / クロマチン / 転写制御

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The human body comprises circa 37 trillion cells of more than 200 types. These cells acquire individual functions through selective expression of genes and become part of particular tissues. The Human Genome Project ushered in methodologies toward the determination of the entire sequences on the genome and the analysis of the complete set of genes. However, the knowledge of every cell type and the exact number of genes and their positions on the genome still eludes us. To address the regulatory system to commit cell fate on chromatin, we here demonstrated to identify histone variants as the context of chromatin comprehensively. We identified 14 novel histone H3 genes and a couple of H3 genes are specifically expressed in skeletal stem/progenitor cells. KO experiments showed the requirements of each histone H3 variants for myogenesis and it's function on chromatin was evaluated by a set of epigenome profiling. The data showed that each histone variants was required for myogenesis.

Free Research Field

クロマチン制御