Dynamic changes of histone H3 lysine 27 acetylation in pre-implantational pig embryos derived from somatic cell nuclear transfer

Histone H3 lysine 27 acetylation (H3K27ac) is an active epigenetic modification which has been revealed to be associated with active gene expression. It was hypothesized that H3K27ac might also participate in the porcine somatic reprogramming process during early development of SCNT-derived embryos. The spatial and temporal expression profiles of H3K27ac were investigated at different developmental stages in SCNT embryos compared with in vitro fertilization (IVF) and parthenogenetic activation (PA) counterparts. Specifically, results showed that amounts of H3K27ac gradually decreased from the earliest pronuclear stage to 8-cell stage, corresponding to the major embryonic genome activation (EGA), followed by re-acetylation of H3K27 from the morula stage onwards accompanying the first cell lineage specification in IVF embryos. Similar dynamic patterns of H3K27ac signal was observed at all developmental stages of porcine SCNT and PA embryos except for the hatched stage in which amounts of H3K27ac in SCNT and PA embryos was slightly less than that in IVF counterparts. Moreover, the gradual decrease of H3K27ac before EGA was demonstrated to be an active process independent of DNA replication, RNA and protein synthesis. The expression of HDAC1, HDAC2, MBD3 and CBP genes were well correlated with the dynamic changes of H3K27ac mark. Overall, these results indicate that H3K27ac is only defective in late SCNT blastocysts, and that the dynamic changes of this marker might also underlie the EGA and initial cell lineage specification during early embryo development.