Changes in histone modifications always correlate with altered transcriptional activities of genes. Recent studies have shown that the mutation of certain lysine residues to methionine in the histone variant H3.3 can act as a valuable tool to reduce specific H3 methylation levels. In our study, we used the mouse spermatogenic cell line GC-2 as a model to generate cells stably expressing H3.3 K4, H3.3 K9, H3.3 K27, and H3.3 K36M. The expression of these H3.3 K-to-M mutants influenced the expression of different subsets of genes, and a total of 891 differentially expressed genes were identified through global gene expression profiling. Moreover, the H3.3 K-to-M transgenes, especially H3.3 K36M, impacted the expression of endogenous retrovirus ERVK. This study gives a global view of how different H3 modifications regulate transcriptomes in spermatogenic cell lines, and identifies potential targets of H3 modifications in male germ line.

中文翻译：

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组蛋白 H3 甲基化在小鼠生精细胞系中协调转录程序

组蛋白修饰的变化总是与基因转录活性的改变相关。最近的研究表明，组蛋白变体 H3.3 中某些赖氨酸残基突变为甲硫氨酸可以作为降低特定 H3 甲基化水平的宝贵工具。在我们的研究中，我们使用小鼠生精细胞系 GC-2 作为模型来生成稳定表达 H3.3 K4、H3.3 K9、H3.3 K27 和 H3.3 K36M 的细胞。这些 H3.3 K-to-M 突变体的表达影响了不同基因子集的表达，通过全局基因表达谱鉴定了总共 891 个差异表达的基因。此外，H3.3 K-to-M 转基因，尤其是 H3.3 K36M，影响内源性逆转录病毒 ERVK 的表达。