Intrachromosomal Looping and Histone K27 Methylation Coordinately Regulates the lncRNA <i>H19</i>-Fetal Mitogen <i>IGF2</i> Imprinting Cluster in the Decidual Microenvironment of Early Pregnancy

oleh: Xue Wen, Qi Zhang, Lei Zhou, Zhaozhi Li, Xue Wei, Wang Yang, Jiaomei Zhang, Hui Li, Zijun Xu, Xueling Cui, Songling Zhang, Yufeng Wang, Wei Li, Andrew R. Hoffman, Zhonghui Liu, Ji-Fan Hu, Jiuwei Cui

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2022-10-01

Deskripsi

Recurrent spontaneous abortion (RSA) is a highly heterogeneous complication of pregnancy with the underlying mechanisms remaining uncharacterized. Dysregulated decidualization is a critical contributor to the phenotypic alterations related to pregnancy complications. To understand the molecular factors underlying RSA, we explored the role of longnoncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) in the decidual microenvironment where the crosstalk at the fetal–maternal interface occurs. By exploring RNA-seq data from RSA patients, we identified <i>H19</i>, a noncoding RNA that exhibits maternal monoallelic expression, as one of the most upregulated lncRNAs associated with RSA. The paternally expressed fetal mitogen <i>IGF2,</i> which is reciprocally coregulated with <i>H19</i> within the same imprinting cluster, was also upregulated. Notably, both genes underwent loss of imprinting, as <i>H19</i> and <i>IGF2</i> were actively transcribed from both parental alleles in some decidual tissues. This loss of imprinting in decidual tissues was associated with the loss of the H3K27m3 repressive histone marker in the <i>IGF2</i> promoter, CpG hypomethylation at the central CTCF binding site in the imprinting control center (ICR), and the loss of CTCF-mediated intrachromosomal looping. These data suggest that dysregulation of the <i>H19/IGF2</i> imprinting pathway may be an important epigenetic factor in the decidual microenvironment related to poor decidualization.