TY - JOUR
T1 - Every amino acid matters
T2 - Essential contributions of histone variants to mammalian development and disease
AU - Maze, Ian
AU - Noh, Kyung Min
AU - Soshnev, Alexey A.
AU - Allis, C. David
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors thank members of C.D.A.’s laboratory for provid‑ ing critiques of the manuscript. Given the broad scope of this Review, they apologize for any relevant citations that might have been omitted. I.M., K.‑M.N. and C.D.A. are partly sup‑ ported by grants from the US National Institute of Mental Health (RO1 MH094698‑01, P50 MH096890‑01) and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS‑SCOR 7132–08). A.A.S. is supported by a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation fellowship (DRG‑2185‑14).
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - Despite a conserved role for histones as general DNA packaging agents, it is now clear that another key function of these proteins is to confer variations in chromatin structure to ensure dynamic patterns of transcriptional regulation in eukaryotes. The incorporation of histone variants is particularly important to this process. Recent knockdown and knockout studies in various cellular systems, as well as direct mutational evidence from human cancers, now suggest a crucial role for histone variant regulation in processes as diverse as differentiation and proliferation, meiosis and nuclear reprogramming. In this Review, we provide an overview of histone variants in the context of their unique functions during mammalian germ cell and embryonic development, and examine the consequences of aberrant histone variant regulation in human disease.
AB - Despite a conserved role for histones as general DNA packaging agents, it is now clear that another key function of these proteins is to confer variations in chromatin structure to ensure dynamic patterns of transcriptional regulation in eukaryotes. The incorporation of histone variants is particularly important to this process. Recent knockdown and knockout studies in various cellular systems, as well as direct mutational evidence from human cancers, now suggest a crucial role for histone variant regulation in processes as diverse as differentiation and proliferation, meiosis and nuclear reprogramming. In this Review, we provide an overview of histone variants in the context of their unique functions during mammalian germ cell and embryonic development, and examine the consequences of aberrant histone variant regulation in human disease.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84899415723&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/nrg3673
DO - 10.1038/nrg3673
M3 - Review article
C2 - 24614311
AN - SCOPUS:84899415723
SN - 1471-0056
VL - 15
SP - 259
EP - 271
JO - Nature Reviews Genetics
JF - Nature Reviews Genetics
IS - 4
ER -