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Updated: Nov 4, 2025

Prediction and Validation of Gene Regulatory Elements Activated During Retinoic Acid Induced Embryonic Stem Cell Differentiation
Published on: June 21, 2016
Two Enhancers Regulate HoxB Genes Expression During Retinoic Acid-Induced Early Embryonic Stem Cells Differentiation
Jian Zheng1, Guangsong Su1, Wenbin Wang1
1State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, College of Life Sciences, Nankai University, Tianjin, China.
Abstract:
Homeobox B cluster (HoxB) genes play important roles in retinoic acid (RA)-induced early embryonic stem cells (ESCs) differentiation. Knowledge of regulation network of HoxB is important to further unveil the mechanism of ESCs differentiation. In this study, we identified two enhancers that were activated by RA treatment and 4C data showed long-range interactions between HoxB genes and the two enhancers. CRISPR/Cas9-mediated individual or compound deletion of the two enhancers significantly inhibits HoxB gene expression, and transcriptome analysis revealed that RA-induced early ESCs differentiation was blocked in the enhancer KO cells. We propose new mechanism by which two enhancers regulate HoxB gene expression by different regulation modes during RA-induced early ESCs differentiation through long-range chromatin interactions.
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