Pcgf1 Regulates Early Neural Tube Development Through Histone Methylation in Zebrafish

The neural induction constitutes the initial step in generation of tube. Pcgf1, as one six Pcgf paralogs, is a maternally expressed gene, but its role and mechanism early during tube development have not yet been explored. In this study, we found that zebrafish embryos exhibited small head reduced or even absence telencephalon after inhibiting expression Pcgf1. Moreover, process was abnormally activated, subsequent NSC self-renewal inhibited injecting Pcgf1 MO. results vitro also showed knockdown increased levels markers Pax6, Pou3f1, Zfp521, decreased pluripotent Oct4, Hes1, Nanog, which further confirmed indispensable for maintaining pluripotency P19 cells. To gain better understanding development, analyzed mRNA profiles from Pcgf1-deficient cells using RNA-seq. We differentially genes were enriched many functional categories, related to phenotype, histone demethylases. Finally, our loss-of-function transcriptional repression mark H3K27me3 at promoters Ngn1 Otx2, activation H3K4me3 Pou5f3 Nanog. Together, findings reveal might function both facilitator maintenance repressor induction.