Guanine- and cytosine-rich genes are actively transcribed at the nuclear Lmnb1 compartment
Chromatin organization in the mammalian cell nucleus plays a vital role in the regulation of gene expression. The lamina-associated domain at the inner nuclear membrane has been proposed to harbor heterochromatin, while the nuclear interior has been shown to contain most of the euchromatin. Here, we show that a sub-set of actively transcribing genes, marked by RNA Pol II pSer2, are associated with Lmnb1 at the inner nuclear envelop in mESCs and the number of genes proportionally increases upon in vitro differentiation of mESC to olfactory precursor cells. These nuclear periphery-associated actively transcribing genes primarily represent housekeeping genes, and their gene bodies are significantly enriched with guanine and cytosine compared to genes actively transcribed at the nuclear interior. We found the promoters of these gene's to also be significantly enriched with guanine and to be predominantly regulated by zinc finger protein transcription factors. We provide evidence supporting the emerging notion that the Lmnb1 region is not solely transcriptionally silent. Overall design: Lmnb1-associated actively transcribing gene in male mESCs and mESC derived OPCs immunoprecipitation by sequential ChIP assay (Lmnb1 and RNA Pol II pSer2) and DNA-sequencing.