Glucocorticoids are stress hormones that elicit cellular responses by binding to the glucocorticoid receptor, a ligand-activated transcription factor. The exposure of cells to this hormone induces wide-spread changes in the chromatin landscape and gene expression. Previous studies have suggested that some of these changes are reversible whereas others persist even when the hormone is no longer around. However, when we examined chromatin accessibility in human airway epithelial cells after hormone washout, we found that the hormone-induced changes were universally reversed after 1 d. Moreover, priming of cells by a previous exposure to hormone, in general, did not alter the transcriptional response to a subsequent encounter of the same cue except for one gene, ZBTB16, that displays transcriptional memory manifesting itself as a more robust transcriptional response upon repeated hormone stimulation. Single-cell analysis revealed that the more robust response is driven by a higher probability of primed cells to activate ZBTB16 and by a subset of cells that express the gene at levels that are higher than the induction levels observed for naïve cells.

中文翻译：

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糖皮质激素信号诱导转录记忆和普遍可逆的染色质变化。

糖皮质激素是一种应激激素，通过与糖皮质激素受体（一种配体激活的转录因子）结合来引发细胞反应。细胞暴露于这种激素会引起染色质景观和基因表达的广泛变化。先前的研究表明，其中一些变化是可逆的，而其他一些变化即使在激素不再存在时也会持续存在。然而，当我们检查激素冲洗后人气道上皮细胞中染色质的可及性时，我们发现激素诱导的变化在 1 天后普遍逆转。此外，一般而言，通过先前暴露于激素而引发的细胞不会改变对随后遇到相同线索的转录反应，除了一个基因ZBTB16，它显示转录记忆，在反复激素刺激时表现出更强大的转录反应。单细胞分析显示，更强大的反应是由更高的引发细胞激活ZBTB16的概率以及表达该基因的水平高于观察到的幼稚细胞的诱导水平的细胞亚群驱动的。