Histone H3 N-terminal mutations allow hyperactivation of the yeast GAL1 gene in vivo.

Recent work has shown that the yeast histone H4 N-terminus, while not essential for viability, is required for repression of the silent mating loci and activation of GAL1 and PHO5 promoters. Because histone H3 shares many structural features with histone H4 and is intimately associated with H4 in the assembled nucleosome, we asked whether H3 has similar functions. While the basic N-terminal domain of H3 is found to be non-essential (deletion of residues 4-40 of this 135 amino acid protein allows viability), its removal has only a minor effect on mating. Surprisingly, both deletions (of residues 4-15) and acetylation site substitutions (at residues 9, 14 and 18) within the N-terminus of H3 allow hyperactivation of the GAL1 promoter as well as a number of other GAL4-regulated genes including GAL2, GAL7 and GAL10. To a limited extent glucose repression is also alleviated by H3 N-terminal deletions. Expression of another inducible promoter, PHO5, is shown to be relatively unaffected. We conclude that the H3 and H4 N-termini have different functions in both the repression of the silent mating loci and in the regulation of GAL1.     

酵母PHO2与PHO4蛋白的激活活性的分析及两者的相互作用

ＰＨＯ２与ＰＨＯ４是酵母ＰＨＯ５基因的两个正调控因子,本文发现,ＰＨＯ２与酵母转录因子ＧＡＬ４的ＤＮＡ结合功能域融合后就能激活报道基因ｌａｃＺ的表达,其激活力受高低磷影响,表明ＰＨＯ２蛋白上存在酸性转录激活区。ＰＨＯ２蛋白上酸性氨基酸丰富的２８７－３２６肽段并非ＰＨＯ２的激活区。在ＰＨＯ２蛋白上２３０位Ｓｅｒ处于磷酸化状态２ＰＨＯ２才有激活作用,表明了这一磷酸化位点可能与ＰＨＯ２的转录激活能力有关