Identification of novel chromatin remodeling mechanisms through analyses of core histones

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project Area: Coupling of replication, repair and transcription, and their common mechanism of chromatin remodeling
• Project/Area Number: 22131002
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas (Research in a proposed research area)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Review Section: Biological Sciences
• Research Institution: Tohoku Pharmaceutical University (2012-2015); Tohoku University (2010-2011)
• Principal Investigator: SEKI Masayuki 東北薬科大学, 薬学部, 教授 (70202140)
• Project Period (FY): 2010-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: クロマチン / ヒストン / DNA複製 / DNA修復 / 転写 / 染色体分配 / ヒストンバリアント

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Eukaryotic genome is regulated as chromatin structure whose components are mainly DNA and histones. To understand molecular mechanisms behind a variety of DNA-mediated reactions, it is important to investigate missing roles of histones. In this study, we found novel roles of histones in a variety of DNA-mediated reactions including transcription, DNA replication, DNA repair, and chromosome segregation, as follows. 1) A novel role of histone surface in transcription elongation coupled H3-K36 methylation is found, 2) Protection of Sgo1 via histone surfaces is critical for faithful chromosome segregation, 3) Histone H2B is a common subunit for histone H2A-H2B dimer and histone variant H2A.Z-H2B dimer. Although D71 residue of H2B physically interacts with H2A and H2A.Z in corresponding dimers, H2B-D71A mutation mainly affect the function of H2A.Z-H2B rather than H2A-H2B, 4) Histone chaperone FACT may destabilize histones in ahead of replication fork and support fork progression.

Free Research Field

分子細胞生物学