Marlin Touma

Long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) mediated transcriptional regulation is increasingly recognized as an important gene regulatory mechanism during development and disease. LncRNAs are emerging as critical regulators of chromatin state; yet the nature and the extent of their interactions with chromatin remain to be fully revealed. We have previously identified Ppp1r1b-lncRNA as an essential epigenetic regulator of myogenic differentiation in cardiac and skeletal myocytes in mice and humans. We further demonstrated that Ppp1r1b-lncRNA function is mediated by the interaction with the chromatin-modifying complex polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) at the promoter of myogenic differentiation transcription factors, TBX5 and MyoD1. Herein, we employed unbiased chromatin isolation by RNA purification (ChIRP) and high throughput sequencing to map the repertoire of Ppp1r1b-lncRNA chromatin occupancy genome-wide in the mouse muscle myoblast cell line. We uncovered a total of 99732 true peaks corresponding to Ppp1r1b-lncRNA binding sites at high confidence (p-value < 1E-5) and enrichment score ≥ 10). The Ppp1r1b-lncRNA-binding sites averaged 558 bp in length and were distributed widely within the coding and non-coding regions of the genome. Approximately 46% of these true peaks were mapped to gene elements, of which 1180 were mapped to experimentally validated promoter sequences. Importantly, the promoter-mapped binding sites were enriched in myogenic transcription factors and heart development while exhibiting focal interactions with known motifs of proximal promoters and transcription initiation by RNA Pol-II, including TATA-box, transcription initiator motif, CCAAT-box, and GC-box, supporting Ppp1r1b-lncRNA role in transcription initiation of myogenic regulators. Remarkably, nearly 40% of Ppp1r1b-lncRNA-binding sites mapped to gene introns were enriched with the Homeobox family of transcription factors and exhibited TA-rich motif sequences, suggesting potential motif-specific Ppp1r1b-lncRNA-bound introns. Lastly, more than 136521 enhancer sequences were detected in Ppp1r1b-lncRNA-occupancy sites at high confidence. Among these enhancers, 3390 (12%) exhibited cell type/tissue-specific enrichment in fetal heart and muscles. Together, our findings provide further insights into the genome-wide Ppp1r1b-lncRNA: Chromatin interactome that may dictate its function in myogenic differentiation and potentially other cellular and biological processes.