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Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) play a wide range of roles in the epigenetic regulation of crucial biological processes, but the functions of lncRNAs in cortical development are poorly understood. Using human embryonic stem cell (hESC)-based 2D neural differentiation approach and 3D cerebral organoid system, we identified that the lncRNA PAUPAR, which is adjacent to PAX6, plays essential roles in cortical differentiation by interacting with PAX6 to regulate the expression of a large number of neural genes. Mechanistic studies showed that PAUPAR confers PAX6 proper binding sites on the target neural genes by directly binding the genomic regions of these genes. Moreover, PAX6 recruits the histone methyltransferase NSD1 through its C-terminal PST enrichment domain, then regulate H3K36 methylation and the expression of target genes. Collectively, our data reveal that the PAUPAR/PAX6/NSD1 complex plays a critical role in the epigenetic regulation of hESC cortical differentiation and highlight the importance of PAUPAR as an intrinsic regulator of cortical differentiation.

Previous studies have revealed the critical roles of N6-methyladenosine (m6A) modification of mRNA in embryonic stem cells (ESCs), but the biological function of m6A in large intergenic noncoding RNA (lincRNA) is unknown. Here, we showed that the internal m6A modification of linc1281 mediates a competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) model to regulate mouse ESC (mESC) differentiation. We demonstrated that loss of linc1281 compromises mESC differentiation and that m6A is highly enriched within linc1281 transcripts. Linc1281 with RRACU m6A sequence motifs, but not an m6A-deficient mutant, restored the phenotype in linc1281-depleted mESCs. Mechanistic analyses revealed that linc1281 ensures mESC identity by sequestering pluripotency-related let-7 family microRNAs (miRNAs), and this RNA-RNA interaction is m6A dependent. Collectively, these findings elucidated the functional roles of linc1281 and its m6A modification in mESCs and identified a novel RNA regulatory mechanism, providing a basis for further exploration of broad RNA epigenetic regulatory patterns.

The maturation of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) is one of the limiting steps of somatic cell reprogramming, but the underlying mechanism is largely unknown. Here, we reported that knockdown of histone deacetylase 2 (HDAC2) specifically promoted the maturation of iPS cells. Further studies showed that HDAC2 knockdown significantly increased histone acetylation, facilitated TET1 binding and DNA demethylation at the promoters of iPS cell maturation-related genes during the transition of pre-iPS cells to a fully reprogrammed state. We also found that HDAC2 competed with TET1 in the binding of the RbAp46 protein at the promoters of maturation genes and knockdown of TET1 markedly prevented the activation of these genes. Collectively, our data not only demonstrated a novel intrinsic mechanism that the HDAC2-TET1 switch critically regulates iPS cell maturation, but also revealed an underlying mechanism of the interplay between histone acetylation and DNA demethylation in gene regulation.