Analysis of the chromatin interaction in the region of SOCS1 gene

Abstract

Enhancers are regions in the genome known as cis-regulatory elements. They have a key role guiding the cell type specific expression and are able to regulate the transcriptions of their targets genes from great distances. The chromatin accessibility as well as the DNA methylation can control the enhancer activity .Recently, the PhD results demonstrated a new regulatory region located at SOCS1 CGI. During gene reporter assay this region showed enhancer activity which was disrupted by in vitro DNA methylation. Bioinformatics analysis showed us the target genes to be under regulation of SOCS1 enhancer. These genes are related to cellular proliferation, apoptosis e regulation of immune-inflamatory response. In vivo analysis showed that the hypermethylation of SOCS1 CpG island in samples from individuals with chronic inflammation of the periodontium (chronic periodontitis) presented an anti-correlation with the target genes expression in those samples. To complete the characterization of SOCS1 enhancer it will be necessary to demonstrate the interaction of this region with the target genes. Thus, the proposal of this project is a complementation of the results obtained during PhD. We intend to show the interactions enhancer-promoter in different human cell lines. We propose the use of conformation capture (3C) which will allows us to access the chromatin interaction in the SOCS1 region in different human cells. Hence, we will be able to understand what interactions are present in different cells lines. (AU)