Reciprocal changes of H3K27ac and H3K27me3 at the promoter regions of the critical genes for endometrial decidualization.

AIM: Decidualization is essential for embryo implantation and placental development. We aimed to obtain transcriptome and epigenome profiles for primary endometrial stromal cells (ESCs) and in vitro decidualized cells.

MATERIALS &

METHODS

ESCs isolated from human endometrial tissues remained untreated (D0), or decidualized for 4 days (D4) and 8 days (D8) in the presence of 8-bromo-cAMP and progesterone.

RESULTS

Among the epigenetic modifications examined (DNA methylation, H3K27ac, H3K9me3 and H3K27me3), the H3K27ac patterns changed most dramatically, with a moderate correlation with gene expression changes, upon decidualization. Subsets of up- and down-regulated genes upon decidualization were associated with reciprocal changes of H3K27ac and H3K27me3 modifications at their promoter region, and were enriched with genes essential for decidualization such as WNT4, ZBTB16, PROK1 and GREB1.

CONCLUSION

Our dataset is useful to further elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying decidualization.