The meta-epigenomic structure of purified human stem cell populations is defined at cis-regulatory sequences

N. Ari Wijetunga, Fabien Delahaye, Yong M. Zhao, Aaron Golden, Jessica C. Mar, Francine H. Einstein () and John M. Greally ()
Additional contact information
N. Ari Wijetunga: Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Fabien Delahaye: Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Yong M. Zhao: Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Aaron Golden: Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Jessica C. Mar: Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Francine H. Einstein: Albert Einstein College of Medicine
John M. Greally: Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Nature Communications, 2014, vol. 5, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract The mechanism and significance of epigenetic variability in the same cell type between healthy individuals are not clear. Here we purify human CD34+ haematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) from different individuals and find that there is increased variability of DNA methylation at loci with properties of promoters and enhancers. The variability is especially enriched at candidate enhancers near genes transitioning between silent and expressed states, and encoding proteins with leukocyte differentiation properties. Our findings of increased variability at loci with intermediate DNA methylation values, at candidate ‘poised’ enhancers and at genes involved in HSPC lineage commitment suggest that CD34+ cell subtype heterogeneity between individuals is a major mechanism for the variability observed. Epigenomic studies performed on cell populations, even when purified, are testing collections of epigenomes, or meta-epigenomes. Our findings show that meta-epigenomic approaches to data analysis can provide insights into cell subpopulation structure.

Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms6195 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:5:y:2014:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms6195

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms6195

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().