Abstract
Tae-young Roh1, Wing Chi Ngau2, Kairong Cui1, David Landsman2 & Keji Zhao1
1 Laboratory of Molecular Immunology, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, 9000 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA.
2 Computational Biology Branch, National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, Maryland 20894, USA.
The expression patterns of eukaryotic genomes are controlled by their chromatin structure, consisting of nucleosome subunits in which DNA of approximately 146 bp is wrapped around a core of 8 histone molecules1. Post-translational histone modifications play an essential role in modifying chromatin structure2. Here we apply a combination of SAGE3 and chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) protocols to determine the distribution of hyperacetylated histones H3 and H4 in the Saccharomyces cerevisiae genome. We call this approach genome-wide mapping technique (GMAT). Using GMAT, we find that the highest acetylation levels are detected in the 5\'' end of a gene\''s coding region, but not in the promoter. Furthermore, we show that the histone acetyltransferase, GCN5p, regulates H3 acetylation in the promoter and 5\'' end of the coding regions. These findings indicate that GMAT should find valuable applications in mapping target sites of chromatin-modifying enzymes.