PRJNA679744
H3K27me3 Project Raw sequence reads
The trimethylation of histone H3 lysine 27 (H3K27me3) may be recruited by repressive Polycomb complexes to mediate gene silencing, which is critical for maintaining embryonic stem cell pluripotency and differentiation. However, the role of aberrant H3K27me3 patterns in tumorigenesis remains unclear. Here, we discovered that grand repression domains (breadth > 50kb) for H3K27me3 were significantly associated with cell fate determinants and exhibited high gene essentiality and conservation in normal and cancer cells. They preferentially established super-silencer domains with higher modification signals involved in gene silencing, coinciding with the entirety of the topologically associating domain, and had multiplex chromatin interactions and interact preferentially with each other. Widespread shortening of the super-silencers in esophageal squamous-cell carcinomas (ESCC) was observed.