RESEARCH ARTICLE Tet2 and Tet3 cooperate with B-lineage transcription factors to regulate DNA modification and chromatin accessibility Chan-Wang Lio1†, Jiayuan Zhang2†, Edahı´Gonza´ lez-Avalos1, Patrick G Hogan1, Xing Chang1,2,3*, Anjana Rao1,3,4,5* 1Division of Signaling and Gene Expression, San Diego, United States; 2Key Laboratory of Stem Cell Biology, Institute of Health Sciences, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China; 3Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine, San Diego, United States; 4Department of Pharmacology, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, United States; 5Moores Cancer Center, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, United States Abstract Ten-eleven translocation (TET) enzymes oxidize 5-methylcytosine, facilitating DNA demethylation and generating new epigenetic marks. Here we show that concomitant loss of Tet2 and Tet3 in mice at early B cell stage blocked the pro- to pre-B cell transition in the bone marrow, decreased Irf4 expression and impaired the germline transcription and rearrangement of the Igk locus. Tet2/3-deficient pro-B cells showed increased CpG methylation at the Igk 3’ and distal enhancers that was mimicked by depletion of E2A or PU.1, as well as a global decrease in chromatin accessibility at enhancers. Importantly, re-expression of the Tet2 catalytic domain in *For correspondence: Tet2/3-deficient B cells resulted in demethylation of the Igk enhancers and restored their chromatin
[email protected] (XC); arao@ accessibility. Our data suggest that TET proteins and lineage-specific transcription factors lji.org (AR) cooperate to influence chromatin accessibility and Igk enhancer function by modulating the modification status of DNA.