Histone Lysine Methylation in TGF-β1 Mediated p21 Gene Expression in Rat Mesangial Cells

Transforming growth factor beta1- (TGF-β1-) induced p21-dependent mesangial cell (MC) hypertrophy plays a key role in the pathogenesis of chronic renal diseases including diabetic nephropathy (DN). Increasing evidence demonstrated the role of posttranscriptional modifications (PTMs) in the event; however, the precise regulatory mechanism of histone lysine methylation remains largely unknown. Here, we examined the roles of both histone H3 lysine 4 and lysine 9 methylations (H3K4me/H3K9me) in TGF-β1 induced p21 gene expression in rat mesangial cells (RMCs). Our results indicated that TGF-β1 upregulated the expression of p21 gene in RMCs, which was positively correlated with the increased chromatin marks associated with active genes (H3K4me1/H3K4me2/H3K4me3) and negatively correlated with the decreased levels of repressive marks (H3K9me2/H3K9me3) at p21 gene promoter. TGF-β1 also elevated the recruitment of the H3K4 methyltransferase (HMT) SET7/9 to the p21 gene promoter. SET7/9 gene silencing with small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) significantly abolished the TGF-β1 induced p21 gene expression. Taken together, these results reveal the key role of histone H3Kme in TGF-β1 mediated p21 gene expression in RMC, partly through HMT SET7/9 occupancy, suggesting H3Kme and SET7/9 may be potential renoprotective agents in managing chronic renal diseases.