ARID4B loss leads to activated STAT1-dependent interferon pathway in mouse embryonic stem cells and during meso/endodermal differentiation.

Objective: Proper deactivation of the pluripotency network and activation of a lineage-specific gene expression program are critical for mouse embryonic stem cell (mESC) differentiation. This is achieved by the coordinated action of transcription and chromatin factors. Our previous work identified ARID4B as a critical chromatin factor for mesoderm and endoderm differentiation. As part of a histone deacetylase complex, ARID4B plays a role in transcriptional suppression of its direct targets. Here, we investigated the mechanism of ARID4B function in mESC differentiation by focusing on genes and pathways that are upregulated in its absence.

Material and methods: We analyzed transcriptomic results of wild-type and arid4bΔ endoderm or mesoderm differentiated cells through integrative genomics viewer and ingenuity pathway analysis. We performed real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction for selected genes. To understand pathway activation, we performed Western blot for candidate proteins during the time-course of differentiation. We also analyzed H3K4me3, H3K27me3 and H3K27Ac ChIP-seq results to understand changes in the chromatin environment.

Results: Interferon-related genes were activated in arid4bΔ mESCs and endoderm or mesoderm directed cells. Consistent with this, higher phosphorylated STAT1 levels were found in arid4bΔ mESCs while a related phosphorylated STAT3 was unchanged. Finally, we observed a significant increase in H3K4me3 around interferon-related distal gene regulatory regions with a combination of either upregulation of H3K27Ac level or downregulation of H3K27me3 level.

Conclusion: These results provide evidence that ARID4B is involved in the suppression of interferon-related genes in mESCs and during meso/endoderm differentiation through modulation, mainly of H3K4me3. This regulation might be important for successful mESC differentiation.