bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.02.03.429504; this version posted February 3, 2021. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. Modeling of histone modifications reveals formation mechanism and function of bivalent chromatin Wei Zhao1,2, Lingxia Qiao1, Shiyu Yan2, Qing Nie3,*, Lei Zhang1,2,* 1 Beijing International Center for Mathematical Research, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China 2 Center for Quantitative Biology, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China 3 Department of Mathematics and Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697, USA. *Corresponding authors: Qing Nie, email:
[email protected]; Lei Zhang, email:
[email protected] Abstract Bivalent chromatin is characterized by occupation of both activating histone modifications and repressive histone modifications. While bivalent chromatin is known to link with many biological processes, the mechanisms responsible for its multiple functions remain unclear. Here, we develop a mathematical model that involves antagonistic histone modifications H3K4me3 and H3K27me3 to capture the key features of bivalent chromatin. Three necessary conditions for the emergence of bivalent chromatin are identified, including advantageous methylating activity over demethylating activity, frequent noise conversions of modifications, and sufficient nonlinearity. The first condition is further confirmed by analyzing the