Systematic histone H4 replacement in Arabidopsis thaliana reveals a role for H4R17 in regulating flowering time

Corcoran, Emma Tung, LeBlanc, Chantal, Huang, Yi-Chun, Tsang, Mia Arias, Sarkiss, Anthony, Hu, Yuzhao, Pedmale, Ullas V, Jacob, Yannick (July 2022) Systematic histone H4 replacement in Arabidopsis thaliana reveals a role for H4R17 in regulating flowering time. The Plant Cell. koac211. ISSN 1040-4651

Abstract

Despite the broad array of roles for epigenetic mechanisms on regulating diverse processes in eukaryotes, no experimental system is currently available in plants for the direct assessment of histone function. In this work, we present the development of a genetic strategy in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) whereby modified histone H4 transgenes can completely replace the expression of endogenous histone H4 genes. Accordingly, we established a collection of plants expressing different H4 point mutants targeting residues that may be post-translationally modified in vivo. To demonstrate its utility, we screened this new H4 mutant collection to uncover substitutions in H4 that alter flowering time. We identified different mutations in the H4 tail (H4R17A) and the H4 globular domain (H4R36A, H4R39K, H4R39A, and H4K44A) that strongly accelerate the floral transition. Furthermore, we identified a conserved regulatory relationship between H4R17 and the ISWI chromatin remodeling complex in plants: As with other biological systems, H4R17 regulates nucleosome spacing via ISWI. Overall, this work provides a large set of H4 mutants to the plant epigenetics community that can be used to systematically assess histone H4 function in Arabidopsis and a roadmap to replicate this strategy for studying other histone proteins in plants.

Item Type: Paper
Subjects: organism description > plant > Arabidopsis
bioinformatics
bioinformatics > genomics and proteomics > genetics & nucleic acid processing > DNA, RNA structure, function, modification
bioinformatics > genomics and proteomics > genetics & nucleic acid processing
bioinformatics > genomics and proteomics
bioinformatics > genomics and proteomics > genetics & nucleic acid processing > protein structure, function, modification
organs, tissues, organelles, cell types and functions > cell types and functions > cell functions > cell regulation
bioinformatics > genomics and proteomics > genetics & nucleic acid processing > protein structure, function, modification > protein types > histone
bioinformatics > genomics and proteomics > genetics & nucleic acid processing > DNA, RNA structure, function, modification > nucleosome
organism description > plant
bioinformatics > genomics and proteomics > genetics & nucleic acid processing > protein structure, function, modification > protein types
CSHL Authors:
Communities: CSHL labs > Pedmale lab
SWORD Depositor: CSHL Elements
Depositing User: CSHL Elements
Date: 26 July 2022
Date Deposited: 22 Aug 2022 01:35
Last Modified: 11 Jan 2024 19:29
PMCID: PMC9516085
URI: https://repository.cshl.edu/id/eprint/40693

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