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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2014 Aug 1.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Rev Genet. 2013 Dec 24;15(2):93–106. doi: 10.1038/nrg3607

Figure 4. Epigenetic pre-patterning for lineage specification.

Figure 4

In multipotent endoderm cells, regulatory elements of liver-specific genes and pancreas-specific genes are `pre-patterned' with distinct chromatin marks; both the active H3K9acK14ac marks and the repressive H3K27me3 mark are enriched in the regulatory elements of pancreas-expressed genes (such as Pdx1), but they are low or undetectable in the regulatory elements of liver-expressed genes (such as Alb1, Afp and Ttr). In response to BMP signaling, SMAD4 recruits p300 to the regulatory elements of liver-expressed genes to stimulate histone acetylation and induce hepatic specification. Meanwhile, the PRC2 complex maintains the level of H3K27me3 in the regulatory elements of pancreas-expressed genes to prevent pancreas specification.