Cell Reports
Volume 28, Issue 1, 2 July 2019, Pages 257-266.e5
Journal home page for Cell Reports

Article
Polycomb Repressive Complex 1 Controls Maintenance of Fungiform Papillae by Repressing Sonic Hedgehog Expression

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2019.06.011Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Highlights

  • PRC1 is critical for lingual papillae development, while PRC2 is dispensable

  • PRC1 ablation results in ectopic SHH signaling and taste cell niche collapse

  • Ablation of SHH signaling in PRC1-null tongues rescues taste cell cluster integrity

  • Spatial gene regulation in the non-gustatory niche is essential for taste cells

Summary

How tissue patterns are formed and maintained are fundamental questions. The murine tongue epithelium, a paradigm for tissue patterning, consists of an array of specialized fungiform papillae structures that harbor taste cells. The formation of fungiform papillae is preceded by pronounced spatial changes in gene expression, in which taste cell genes such as Shh, initially diffused in lingual epithelial progenitors, become restricted to taste cells when their specification progresses. However, the requirement of spatial restriction of taste cell gene expression for patterning and formation of fungiform papillae is unknown. Here, we show that a chromatin regulator, Polycomb repressive complex (PRC) 1, is required for proper maintenance of fungiform papillae by repressing Shh and preventing ectopic SHH signaling in non-taste cells. Ablation of SHH signaling in PRC1-null non-taste cells rescues the maintenance of taste cells. Altogether, our studies exemplify how epigenetic regulation establishes spatial gene expression patterns necessary for specialized niche structures.

Keywords

PRC1
Sonic Hedgehog
fungiform papillae
Polycomb
filiform papillae

Cited by (0)

8

Present address: Department of Genetics, Yale University School of Medicine, 333 Cedar St., New Haven, CT 06510, USA

9

Present address: Yale Center for Genome Analysis, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06510, USA

10

Lead Contact