Lactate regulates cell differentiation of erythroid progenitor cells via histone lactylation modification [RNA-seq]

As a key metabolite of glycolysis, lactate plays important regulatory roles in a variety of biological events by regulating metabolic homeostasis and histone lactylation. However, the role of lactate and histone lactylation in human erythropoiesis remains unclear. Here, we explored the role of lactate in erythropoiesis by adding the glycolysis inhibitor 2-DG or exogenous lactate Na-La to decrease or increase intracellular lactate levels, respectively. The results showed that 2-DG treatment promoted erythroid progenitors differentiation, blocked cell cycle and reduced colony-forming ability of CFU-E. In contrast, Na-La delayed erythroid progenitors differentiation and promoted CFU-E colony formation. We also found that lactate levels directly regulated H3K14la and H3K18la intensity. Furthermore, CUT&Tag results showed that the lost H3K14la peaks after 2-DG treatment were mainly enriched in promoter region and were associated with cell cycle and division. RNA-seq results showed that gene expression pattern was dramatically altered after 2-DG treatment, and differentially expressed genes were enriched in cell cycle and division process. Integrated analysis of CUT&Tag and RNA-seq revealed that gene expression was regulated by H3K14la, and CCNB1, CFL1, CENPA, SKA2 and GNAI2 gene expression were verified by RT-qPCR. In conclusion, our study reveals that lactate affects the cell differentiation of early erythroid progenitors by regulating gene expression through histone lactylation.