Role of theEGR2promoter antisense RNA in modulating chromatin accessibility and spatial genome organization

Abstract

The EGR2 promoter antisense RNA (AS-RNA) recruits chromatin remodeling complexes to inhibit EGR2 transcription following peripheral nerve injury. Here we show that the EGR2-AS-RNA modulates chromatin accessibility and serves as scaffold for two distinct histone modification complexes. It binds to EZH2 and WDR5 and enables coordinate targeting of H3K27me3 and H3K4me3 to promoters of EGR2and C-JUN. Expression of the AS-RNA results in reorganization of the global chromatin landscape and quantitative changes in loop formation and in contact frequency at domain boundaries exhibiting enrichment for AP-1 genes. In addition, the EGR2-AS-RNA induces changes in hierarchical TADs and increases transcriptional activity on an inter-TAD loop between a super-enhancer regulatory hub and the promoter of mTOR. Our results show that the EGR2-AS-RNA may serve as regulator of coordinate chromatin remodeling and spatial genome organization to regulate cellular plasticity-associated transcription in Schwann cells.