Abstract
Mono-ubiquitinated histone H2B (H2B-Ub) is important for chromatin regulation of transcription, chromatin assembly, and also influences heterochromatin. In this review, we discuss the effects of H2B-Ub from nucleosome to higher-order chromatin structure. We then assess what is currently known of the role of H2B-Ub in heterochromatic silencing in budding and fission yeasts (S. cerevisiae and S. pombe), which have distinct silencing mechanisms. In budding yeast, the SIR complex initiates heterochromatin assembly with the aid of a H2B-Ub deubiquitinase, Ubp10. In fission yeast, the RNAi-dependent pathway initiates heterochromatin in the context of low H2B-Ub. We examine how the different silencing machineries overcome the challenge of H2B-Ub chromatin and highlight the importance of using these microorganisms to further our understanding of H2B-Ub in heterochromatic silencing pathways.
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a–c Adapted from Zukowski et al. (2017)
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank T. Yao for helpful discussions, and E. Duncan and R. Ancar for feedback with this manuscript. This work was supported by NIH Grants T32GM008730 (A. Z.) and R35GM119575 (A. M. J).
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Zukowski, A., Johnson, A.M. The interplay of histone H2B ubiquitination with budding and fission yeast heterochromatin. Curr Genet 64, 799–806 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00294-018-0812-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00294-018-0812-1