Banting and Best Department of Medical Research, Terrence Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research -CCBR-, University of Toronto, 160 College St-, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3E1, Canada-
Abstract: Acetylation of Saccharomyces cerevisiae histone H3 on K56 by the histone acetyltransferase -HAT- Rtt109 is important for repairing replication-associated lesions- Rtt109 purifies from yeast in complex with the histone chaperone Vps75, which stabilizes the HAT in vivo- A whole-genome screen to identify genes whose deletions have synthetic genetic interactions with rtt109Delta suggests Rtt109 has functions in addition to DNA repair- We show that in addition to its known H3-K56 acetylation activity, Rtt109 is also an H3-K9 HAT, and we show that Rtt109 and Gcn5 are the only H3-K9 HATs in vivo- Rtt109's H3-K9 acetylation activity in vitro is enhanced strongly by Vps75- Another histone chaperone, Asf1, and Vps75 are both required for acetylation of lysine 9 on H3 -H3-K9ac- in vivo by Rtt109, whereas H3-K56ac in vivo requires only Asf1- Asf1 also physically interacts with the nuclear Hat1-Hat2-Hif1 complex that acetylates H4-K5 and H4-K12- We suggest Asf1 is capable of assembling into chromatin H3-H4 dimers diacetylated on both H4-K5-12 and H3-K9-56-