Deacetylation Makes Sense

Using their new NET-seq technique in S. cerevisiae, Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers recently found a new role for histone acetylation that adds yet another layer of complexity to RNA transcription regulation—local acetyl modifications apparently allow RNA polymerase to make anti-sense transcripts upstream of a gene, while the deacetylating enzyme complex Rpd3S keeps transcription going in the sense direction. Along with previous findings, the experiments demonstrate that “the primary function of the Rpd3S histone deacetylase complex seems to be to enforce promoter directionality,” write HHMI’s Stirling Churchman and Jonathan Weissman in the Jan. 20 Nature. The paper also provides in vivo support of earlier observations that RNA polymerase tends to pause at histones along a DNA template, giving cellular machinery … Continue reading →