Regulating gene expression during cellular differentiation: a NuRDy affair

2 November 2018

Chromatin regulatory complexes play an important role in regulating gene expression. How these complexes are recruited to their target sites remains an active area of investigation.

The evolutionarily conserved Nucleosome Remodelling and Deacetylase (NuRD) complex is such a chromatin-associated protein complex. As the name implies, this complex combines two enzymatic functions: histone deacetylase activity and ATP-dependent chromatin remodelling activity. NuRD has been shown to play a role in gene expression regulation, stem cell self-renewal, and lineage commitment.
 
Researchers from the Michiel Vermeulen lab, led by Susan Kloet (r) and Ino Karemaker (l), used genome-wide profiling and quantitative interaction proteomics to study the dynamics of the NuRD complex during differentiation from mouse embryonic stem cells (ESCs) into neural progenitor cells (NPCs). They identified ZFP296 as a novel, ESC-specific NuRD-interacting protein that regulates genome-wide NuRD localisation as well as differentiation of ESCs.

This work, recently published in Nature Communications, provides a molecular basis for genome-wide NuRD localisation during ESC differentiation.