Histone acetylation and its role in the regulation of gene expression in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Abstract:

In eukaryotes, histone modifications that induce chromatin remodeling are an important mechanism of epigenetic regulation, and acetylation is a crucial form of such modification. In general, the ε-amino groups of lysine residues of histone N-termini are subject to acetylation, which affects the structure of nucleosome. The acetylation status of histones is controlled by two kinds of functionally antagonistic enzymes, acetyltransferases and deacetylases, which are responsible for acetylation and deacetylation of histones, respectively. Each enzyme has several homologs in the cell that modify different residues of histones. Furthermore, combined with other factors, histone acetylation regulates gene expression at the epigenetic level. In this review, we summarized latest research on the classification of acetyltransferases and deacetylases together with their functional characteristics regarding gene regulation in the eukaryotic model organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae.