How stable is repression of disallowed genes in pancreatic islets in response to metabolic stress?

The specific phenotype of mature differentiated beta cells not only depends on the specific presence of genes that allow beta cell function but also on the selective absence of housekeeping genes (“disallowed genes”) that would interfere with this function. Recent studies have shown that both histone modifications and DNA methylation via the de novo methyltransferase DNMT3A are involved in repression of disallowed genes in neonatal beta cells when these cells acquire their mature phenotype. It is unknown, however, if the environmental influence of advanced age, pregnancy and the metabolic stress of high fat diet or diabetes could alter the repression of disallowed genes in beta cells. In the present study, we show that islet disallowed genes—which are also deeply repressed in FACS-purified beta cells—remain deeply repressed in animals of advanced age and in pregnant females. Moreover, the stability of this repression was correlated with strong and stable histone repression marks that persisted in islets isolated from 2 year old mice and with overall high expression of Dnmt3a in islets. Furthermore, repression of disallowed genes was unaffected by the metabolic stress of high fat diet. However, repression of about half of the disallowed genes was weakened in 16 week-old diabetic db/db mice. In conclusion, we show that the disallowed status of islet genes is stable under physiological challenging conditions (advanced age, pregnancy, high fat diet) but partially lost in islets from diabetic animals.