Zymosan Fungal Infection Induces Nucleosome Redistributions During the Innate Immune Response

Chromatin structure plays a critical role in the regulation of the human genome. An understanding of the role of chromatin structure and its relationship to gene regulation is critical to developing new strategies to prevent and treat diseases. We chose to investigate the anti-inflammatory response of human macrophage like cell line (THP1) to Zymosan, in order to elucidate the regulation of chromatin. Zymosan is a component the fungal cell wall that induces an innate immune response. After THP1 were treated with zymosan, we hypothesized that the fungal infection would initiate an inflammatory response by altering nucleosome redistribution and/or altering chromatin structure in a time dependent manner. Based on previous results that showed rapid, widespread, transient changes in nucleosome distribution in the innate immune response, we chose to look at multiple time points at high temporal resolution: 0 (control), 20', 40', 60', 80', 100', 2h, 3h, 4h and 12h. We measured nucleosome distribution at each of these time points at hundreds of genes transcription start sites involved in the immune response. nucleosome distribution changes in the innate immune response to fungal infection.