Long-Range Enhancer Interactions Are Prevalent in Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells and Are Reorganized upon Pluripotent State Transition.

Abstract

Transcriptional enhancers, including super-enhancers (SEs), form physical interactions with promoters to regulate cell-type-specific gene expression. SEs are characterized by high transcription factor occupancy and large domains of active chromatin, and they are commonly assigned to target promoters using computational predictions. How promoter-SE interactions change upon cell state transitions, and whether transcription factors maintain SE interactions, have not been reported. Here, we used promoter-capture Hi-C to identify promoters that interact with SEs in mouse embryonic stem cells (ESCs). We found that SEs form complex, spatial networks in which individual SEs contact multiple promoters, and a rewiring of promoter-SE interactions occurs between pluripotent states. We also show that long-range promoter-SE interactions are more prevalent in ESCs than in epiblast stem cells (EpiSCs) or Nanog-deficient ESCs. We conclude that SEs form cell-type-specific interaction networks that are partly dependent on core transcription factors, thereby providing insights into the gene regulatory organization of pluripotent cells.P.J.R.-G. is supported by the Wellcome Trust (WT093736), Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/M022285/1 and BB/P013406/1), and the European Commission Network of Excellence EpiGeneSys (HEALTH-F4-2010-257082). This work was also supported by the following grants to P.F.: Medical Research Council (MR/L007150/1, MC_UP_1302/1, MC_UP_1302/3, MC_UP_1302/5), and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/J004480/1)