PTMs on H3 Variants before Chromatin Assembly Potentiate Their Final Epigenetic State

Histone H3 variants specify modes of chromatin assembly.

Histone variants have been known for 30 years, but their functions and the mechanism of their deposition are still largely unknown. Drosophila has three versions of histone H3. H3 packages the bulk genome, H3.3 marks active chromatin and may be essential for gene regulation, and Cid is the characteristic structural component of centromeric chromatin. We have characterized the properties of thes...

Histone variants, nucleosome assembly and epigenetic inheritance.

Template copying is the basis for inheritance and specification of genetic information and for the propagation of DNA methylation. However, no templating machinery has been identified that is capable of propagating histone modifications and conformations. Potential solutions to this enigma come from recent insights into histone variants and the specialized complexes that assemble them into nucl...

Epigenetics, histone H3 variants, and the inheritance of chromatin states.

Characterization of post‐translational modifications on lysine 9 of histone H3 variants in mouse testis using matrix‐assisted laser desorption/ionization in‐source decay

RATIONALE Post-translational modifications (PTMs) of histones result in changes to transcriptional activities and chromatin remodeling. Lysine 9 of histone H3 (H3K9) is subject to PTMs, such as methylation and acetylation, which influence histone activity during spermatogenesis. Characterization strategies for studying PTMs on H3K9 have been developed to provide epigenetic and proteomic informa...

Centromeric Chromatin and Epigenetic Effects in Kinetochore Assembly

proteins, such as transcription factors, bind selectively to DNA via short but highly conserved binding sites, a second class of factors such as yeast centromere binding factor III (CBF3; Espelin et al., 1997) and the origin recognition complex (ORC) bind to large, poorly conGarth R. Wiens and Peter K. Sorger Department of Biology Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts 0...