4-phenylbutyrate exerts stage-specific effects on cardiac differentiation via HDAC inhibition

• Published in: PloS one 2021-04, Vol.16 (4), p.e0250267-e0250267
• Main Authors: Li, Yanming, Weng, Xiaofei, Wang, Pingping, He, Zezhao, Cheng, Siya, Wang, Dongxing, Li, Xianhui, Cheng, Guanchang, Li, Tao
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Acetylation; Amino acids; Antibodies; Biology and Life Sciences; Cardiology; Cardiomyocytes; Cell differentiation; Cell self-renewal; Depletion; Developmental stages; Differentiation; Editing; Electronic mail; Fetal calf serum; Funding; Gene expression; Genetic aspects; Heart; Histone deacetylase; Histones; Kinases; Leukemia; Leukemia inhibitory factor; Logistics; Medicine; Medicine and Health Sciences; Muscle contraction; Oct-4 protein; Optimization; Penicillin; Phenylbutyric acid; Physical Sciences; Physiological aspects; Plasmids; Pluripotency; Police; Research and Analysis Methods; Steering; Stem cells; Streptomycin; Visualization; Wnt protein
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0250267

4-phenylbutyrate (4-PBA), a terminal aromatic substituted fatty acid, is used widely to specifically attenuate endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and inhibit histone deacetylases (HDACs). In this study, we investigated the effect of 4-PBA on cardiac differentiation of mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells. Herein, we found that 4-PBA regulated cardiac differentiation in a stage-specific manner just like trichostatin A (TSA), a well-known HDAC inhibitor. 4-PBA and TSA favored the early-stage differentiation, but inhibited the late-stage cardiac differentiation via acetylation. Mechanistic studies suggested that HDACs exhibited a temporal expression profiling during cardiomyogenesis. Hdac1 expression underwent a decrease at the early stage, while was upregulated at the late stage of cardiac induction. During the early stage of cardiac differentiation, acetylation favored the induction of Isl1 and Nkx2.5, two transcription factors of cardiac progenitors. During the late stage, histone acetylation induced by 4-PBA or TSA interrupted the gene silence of Oct4, a key determinant of self-renewal and pluripotency. Thereby, 4-PBA and TSA at the late stage hindered the exit from pluripotency, and attenuated the expression of cardiac-specific contractile proteins. Overexpression of HDAC1 and p300 exerted different effects at the distinct stages of cardiac induction. Collectively, our study shows that timely manipulation of HDACs exhibits distinct effects on cardiac differentiation. And the context-dependent effects of HDAC inhibitors depend on cell differentiation states marked by the temporal expression of pluripotency-associated genes.