Genome wide binding of glucocorticoid receptor in dexamethasone treated mouse bone marrow derived macrophages

Macrophages are amongst the major targets of glucocorticoids (GC) as therapeutic anti-inflammatory agents. Here we show that GC treatment of mouse and human macrophages initiates a cascade of induced gene expression including many anti-inflammatory genes. Inducible binding of the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) was detected at candidate enhancers in the vicinity of induced genes in both species and this was strongly associated with canonical GR binding motifs. However, the sets of inducible genes, the candidate enhancers, and the GR motifs within them, were highly-divergent between the two species. Mouse bone marrow derived macrophages were generated from two male 10 week old C57BL/6 mice, treated with dexamethsone 100nM or vehicle and glucocorticoid receptor bound DNA extracted by chromatin immunoprecipitation