Background: Positioning of nucleosomes along DNA is an integral regulator of chromatin accessibility and gene expression in diverse cell types. However, the precise nature of how histone demethylases including the histone 3 lysine 4 (H3K4) demethylase, KDM5B, impacts nucleosome positioning around transcriptional start sites (TSS) of active genes is poorly understood.
Results: Here, we report that KDM5B is a critical regulator of nucleosome positioning in embryonic stem (ES) cells. Micrococcal nuclease sequencing (MNase-Seq) revealed increased enrichment of nucleosomes around TSS regions and DNase I hypersensitive sites in KDM5B-depleted ES cells. Moreover, depletion of KDM5B resulted in a widespread redistribution and disorganization of nucleosomes in a sequence-dependent manner. Dysregulated nucleosome phasing was also evident in KDM5B-depleted ES cells, including asynchronous nucleosome spacing surrounding TSS regions, where nucleosome variance was positively correlated with the degree of asynchronous phasing. The redistribution of nucleosomes around TSS regions in KDM5B-depleted ES cells is correlated with dysregulated gene expression, and altered H3K4me3 and RNA polymerase II occupancy. In addition, we found that DNA shape features varied significantly at regions with shifted nucleosomes.
Conclusion: Altogether, our data support a role for KDM5B in regulating nucleosome positioning in ES cells.
Keywords: ChIP-Seq; Chromatin; Embryonic stem cells; Epigenetics; H3K4me3; KDM5B; MNase; Micrococcal nuclease; Nucleosome positioning; Pluripotent.