Maintenance of active chromatin states by Hmgn1 and Hmgn2 is required for stem cell identity

Abstract

Chromatin plasticity is thought to be fundamental to the pluripotency of embryonic stem cells. Hmgn proteins modulate chromatin structure and are highly expressed during early development and in neural stem/progenitor cells of the developing and adult brain. Here, we show that loss of Hmgn1 or Hmgn2 in pluripotent embryonal carcinoma cells leads to increased levels of spontaneous neuronal differentiation. This is accompanied by the loss of pluripotency markers and increased expression of the pro-neural transcription factors Neurog1 and Ascl1. Neural stem cells derived from these Hmgn-knockout lines also show increased spontaneous neuronal differentiation and Neurog1 expression. The loss of Hmgn2 is associated with the disruption of active chromatin states at specific classes of gene. The levels of H3K4me3, H3K9ac, H3K27ac and H3K122ac are considerably reduced at the pluripotency genes Nanog and Oct4, which impacts transcription. At endodermal/mesodermal lineage-specific genes, the loss of Hmgn2 leads to a switch from a bivalent to a repressive chromatin configuration. However, at the neuronal lineage genes Neurog1 and Ascl1, no epigenetic changes are observed and their bivalent states are retained. We conclude that Hmgn proteins play important roles in maintaining chromatin plasticity in stem cells, and are essential for maintaining stem cell identity and pluripotency.