Age-dynamic H3K4me3 peaks accompanied by RNA expression change are more likely to span gene-body regions and be deposited during adult-stage.

<p>(A) The Venn diagrams show the protein-coding genes that were associated with H3K4me3 markings in adult stage (blue), significant H3K4me3 changes with age (red), and significant RNA expression changes with age (green). Gene numbers for each group are shown. (B) Age-dependent H3K4me3 changes and gene expression changes are positively correlated. Spearman’s correlation coefficient was calculated by using log2 ratio of normalized H3K4me3 levels and RNA expression levels at D12 relative to D2 for the age-dynamic peak regions and their assigned genes. (<a href="http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pgen.1007466#pgen.1007466.s015" target="_blank">S8 Table</a>). rho, Spearman’s correlation coefficient. (C) Genes associated with both age-dependent H3K4me3 and RNA expression changes tend to gain H3K4me3 markings in the adult stage. Average plots show normalized H3K4me3 levels at L3, D2, and D12 for gene groups associated with only age-dependent H3K4me3 changes (left), with both age-dependent H3K4me3 and RNA expression changes (middle), and with only age-dependent RNA expression changes (right). (D) The bar graph shows the percentages of age-dynamic H3K4me3 peaks that were accompanied by RNA expression changes in the l to q clusters (with gene-body H3K4me3) vs the other clusters. Fisher’s exact test shows that the dynamic H3K4me3 peaks in clusters l to q are significantly more likely to be accompanied by age-dependent RNA expression changes. (E.)The lengths of the age-dynamic H3K4m3 peaks are positively correlated with the likelihood of RNA expression change with age. Age-dynamic H3K4me3 peaks assigned only to one gene were used for this analysis. The y-axis represents the fraction of genes exhibiting age-dependent RNA expression change for each group of the indicated peak length (x-axis). The size of the dots indicates the number of peaks (also the number of genes) for each peak length range.