Methylation of histone H3 Lys 4 in coding regions of active genes

TLDR

Posttranslational modifications of histone tails regulate chromatin structure and transcription. The study aims to globally analyze histone acetylation and H3 Lys 4 methylation patterns in yeast. The authors performed global analyses of histone acetylation and H3 Lys 4 methylation patterns in yeast. They found that promoter acetylation of H3/H4 and coding‑region dimethylation of H3 Lys 4 correlate with transcription, that Set1 is essential for maintaining expression of these genes, and that deacetylation by Rpd3/Hda1 overlaps with hypo‑methylated regions, suggesting Set1 protects active coding regions from deacetylation.

Abstract

Posttranslational modifications of histone tails regulate chromatin structure and transcription. Here we present global analyses of histone acetylation and histone H3 Lys 4 methylation patterns in yeast. We observe a significant correlation between acetylation of histones H3 and H4 in promoter regions and transcriptional activity. In contrast, we find that dimethylation of histone H3 Lys 4 in coding regions correlates with transcriptional activity. The histone methyltransferase Set1 is required to maintain expression of these active, promoter-acetylated, and coding region-methylated genes. Global comparisons reveal that genomic regions deacetylated by the yeast enzymes Rpd3 and Hda1 overlap extensively with Lys 4 hypo- but not hypermethylated regions. In the context of recent studies showing that Lys 4 methylation precludes histone deacetylase recruitment, we conclude that Set1 facilitates transcription, in part, by protecting active coding regions from deacetylation.