Critical roles for the co-repressor, Rcor1, in lineage determination

The transcriptional co-repressor, Rcor1, is a critical component of gene expression regulatory machinery. It interacts with two important histone modification enzymes and couples their activities during gene expression regulation. Although many transcription factors have been shown to use Rcor1 as a cofactor to regulate gene expression, it was not clear what biological functions were dependent upon Rcor1. To study Rcor1 function in vivo, I characterized three Rcor1 knockout mouse models that lacked Rcor1 globally, in the nervous system, or in the hematopoietic system respectively.