UMMS Affiliation
Department of Cell & Developmental Biology
Publication Date
2014-03-21
Document Type
Article
Disciplines
Cell and Developmental Biology | Cell Biology | Developmental Biology | Genomics
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Osteogenesis is a highly regulated developmental process and continues during the turnover and repair of mature bone. Runx2, the master regulator of osteoblastogenesis, directs a transcriptional program essential for bone formation through genetic and epigenetic mechanisms. While individual Runx2 gene targets have been identified, further insights into the broad spectrum of Runx2 functions required for osteogenesis are needed.
RESULTS: By performing genome-wide characterization of Runx2 binding at the three major stages of osteoblast differentiation--proliferation, matrix deposition and mineralization--we identify Runx2-dependent regulatory networks driving bone formation. Using chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by high-throughput sequencing over the course of these stages, we identify approximately 80,000 significantly enriched regions of Runx2 binding throughout the mouse genome. These binding events exhibit distinct patterns during osteogenesis, and are associated with proximal promoters and also non-promoter regions: upstream, introns, exons, transcription termination site regions, and intergenic regions. These peaks were partitioned into clusters that are associated with genes in complex biological processes that support bone formation. Using Affymetrix expression profiling of differentiating osteoblasts depleted of Runx2, we identify novel Runx2 targets including Ezh2, a critical epigenetic regulator; Crabp2, a retinoic acid signaling component; Adamts4 and Tnfrsf19, two remodelers of the extracellular matrix. We demonstrate by luciferase assays that these novel biological targets are regulated by Runx2 occupancy at non-promoter regions.
CONCLUSIONS: Our data establish that Runx2 interactions with chromatin across the genome reveal novel genes, pathways and transcriptional mechanisms that contribute to the regulation of osteoblastogenesis.
Rights and Permissions
© 2014 Wu et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited.
DOI of Published Version
10.1186/gb-2014-15-3-r52
Source
Genome Biol. 2014 Mar 21;15(3):R52. doi: 10.1186/gb-2014-15-3-r52. Link to article on publisher's site
Journal/Book/Conference Title
Genome biology
Related Resources
PubMed ID
24655370
Repository Citation
Wu H, Whitfield TW, Gordon JA, Dobson JR, Tai PW, van Wijnen AJ, Stein JL, Stein GS, Lian JB. (2014). Genomic occupancy of Runx2 with global expression profiling identifies a novel dimension to control of osteoblastogenesis. Open Access Articles. https://doi.org/10.1186/gb-2014-15-3-r52. Retrieved from https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/oapubs/2447
Comments
Co-author Jason Dobson was a doctoral student in the Cell Biology program in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (GSBS) at UMass Medical School.