Gene-specific mechanisms direct Glucocorticoid Receptor-driven repression of inflammatory response genes in macrophages
Abstract
The Glucocorticoid Receptor (GR) potently represses macrophage-elicited inflammation, however, the underlying mechanisms remain obscure. Our genome-wide analysis in mouse macrophages reveals that pro-inflammatory paused genes, activated via global negative elongation factor (NELF) dissociation and RNA Polymerase (Pol)2 release from early elongation arrest, and non-paused genes, induced by de novo Pol2 recruitment, are equally susceptible to acute glucocorticoid repression. Moreover, in both cases the dominant mechanism involves rapid GR tethering to p65 at NF-kB binding sites. Yet, specifically at paused genes, GR activation triggers widespread promoter accumulation of NELF, with myeloid cell-specific NELF deletion conferring glucocorticoid resistance. Conversely, at non-paused genes, GR attenuates the recruitment of p300 and histone acetylation, leading to a failure to assemble BRD4 and Mediator at promoters and enhancers, ultimately blocking Pol2 initiation. Thus, GR displays no preference for a specific pro-inflammatory gene class, however, it effects repression by targeting distinct temporal events and components of transcriptional machinery.
Data availability
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Gene-specific mechanisms direct Glucocorticoid Receptor-driven repression of inflammatory response genes in macrophagesPublicly available at the NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus (accession no: GSE110279).
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
National Institutes of Health (R01DK099087)
- Maria A Sacta
- Bowranigan Tharmalingam
- Maddalena Coppo
- David A Rollins
- Dinesh K Deochand
- Bradley Benjamin
- Yurii Chinenov
- Inez Rogatsky
National Natural Science Foundation of China (91642115)
- Li Yu
- Bin Zhang
- Xiaoyu Hu
National Natural Science Foundation of China (8151101184)
- Li Yu
- Bin Zhang
- Xiaoyu Hu
U.S. Department of Defense (PR130049)
- Bowranigan Tharmalingam
- Maddalena Coppo
- Yurii Chinenov
- Inez Rogatsky
Rheumatology Research Foundation
- David A Rollins
- Yurii Chinenov
- Inez Rogatsky
Hospital for Special Surgery David Rosensweig Genomic Center
- Maddalena Coppo
- Yurii Chinenov
- Inez Rogatsky
Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China
- Li Yu
- Bin Zhang
- Xiaoyu Hu
National Natural Science Foundation of China (81422019)
- Li Yu
- Bin Zhang
- Xiaoyu Hu
Tsinghua University
- Li Yu
- Bin Zhang
- Xiaoyu Hu
National Institutes of Health (R01 CA220578)
- Rong Li
National Natural Science Foundation of China (81571580)
- Li Yu
- Bin Zhang
- Xiaoyu Hu
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: This study was performed in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. Mice were maintained in the Weill Cornell Animal Facility in compliance with guidelines from the Weill Cornell Animal Care and Use Committee (Protocol approval # 2015-0050).
Copyright
© 2018, Sacta et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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