Acetylation of histones and non-histone proteins is not a mere consequence of ongoing transcription.

In all eukaryotes, acetylation of histone lysine residues correlates with transcription activation. Whether histone acetylation is a cause or consequence of transcription is debated. One model suggests that transcription promotes the recruitment and/or activation of acetyltransferases, and histone acetylation occurs as a consequence of ongoing transcription. However, the extent to which transcription shapes the global protein acetylation landscapes is not known. Here, we show that global protein acetylation remains virtually unaltered after acute transcription inhibition. Transcription inhibition ablates the co-transcriptionally occurring ubiquitylation of H2BK120 but does not reduce histone acetylation. The combined inhibition of transcription and CBP/p300 further demonstrates that acetyltransferases remain active and continue to acetylate histones independently of transcription. Together, these results show that histone acetylation is not a mere consequence of transcription; acetyltransferase recruitment and activation are uncoupled from the act of transcription, and histone and non-histone protein acetylation are sustained in the absence of ongoing transcription.

Acetylation of histone H2B marks active enhancers and predicts CBP/p300 target genes.

Chromatin features are widely used for genome-scale mapping of enhancers. However, discriminating active enhancers from other cis-regulatory elements, predicting enhancer strength and identifying their target genes is challenging. Here we establish histone H2B N-terminus multisite lysine acetylation (H2BNTac) as a signature of active enhancers. H2BNTac prominently marks candidate active enhancers and a subset of promoters and discriminates them from ubiquitously active promoters. Two mechanisms underlie the distinct H2BNTac specificity: (1) unlike H3K27ac, H2BNTac is specifically catalyzed by CBP/p300; (2) H2A-H2B, but not H3-H4, are rapidly exchanged through transcription-induced nucleosome remodeling. H2BNTac-positive candidate enhancers show a high validation rate in orthogonal enhancer activity assays and a vast majority of endogenously active enhancers are marked by H2BNTac and H3K27ac. Notably, H2BNTac intensity predicts enhancer strength and outperforms current state-of-the-art models in predicting CBP/p300 target genes. These findings have broad implications for generating fine-grained enhancer maps and modeling CBP/p300-dependent gene regulation.

HDAC6 modulates myofibril stiffness and diastolic function of the heart.

Passive stiffness of the heart is determined largely by extracellular matrix and titin, which functions as a molecular spring within sarcomeres. Titin stiffening is associated with the development of diastolic dysfunction (DD), while augmented titin compliance appears to impair systolic performance in dilated cardiomyopathy. We found that myofibril stiffness was elevated in mice lacking histone deacetylase 6 (HDAC6). Cultured adult murine ventricular myocytes treated with a selective HDAC6 inhibitor also exhibited increased myofibril stiffness. Conversely, HDAC6 overexpression in cardiomyocytes led to decreased myofibril stiffness, as did ex vivo treatment of mouse, rat, and human myofibrils with recombinant HDAC6. Modulation of myofibril stiffness by HDAC6 was dependent on 282 amino acids encompassing a portion of the PEVK element of titin. HDAC6 colocalized with Z-disks, and proteomics analysis suggested that HDAC6 functions as a sarcomeric protein deacetylase. Finally, increased myofibril stiffness in HDAC6-deficient mice was associated with exacerbated DD in response to hypertension or aging. These findings define a role for a deacetylase in the control of myofibril function and myocardial passive stiffness, suggest that reversible acetylation alters titin compliance, and reveal the potential of targeting HDAC6 to manipulate the elastic properties of the heart to treat cardiac diseases.

Enhancers are activated by p300/CBP activity-dependent PIC assembly, RNAPII recruitment, and pause release.

The metazoan-specific acetyltransferase p300/CBP is involved in activating signal-induced, enhancer-mediated transcription of cell-type-specific genes. However, the global kinetics and mechanisms of p300/CBP activity-dependent transcription activation remain poorly understood. We performed genome-wide, time-resolved analyses to show that enhancers and super-enhancers are dynamically activated through p300/CBP-catalyzed acetylation, deactivated by the opposing deacetylase activity, and kinetic acetylation directly contributes to maintaining cell identity at very rapid (minutes) timescales. The acetyltransferase activity is dispensable for the recruitment of p300/CBP and transcription factors but essential for promoting the recruitment of TFIID and RNAPII at virtually all enhancers and enhancer-regulated genes. This identifies pre-initiation complex assembly as a dynamically controlled step in the transcription cycle and reveals p300/CBP-catalyzed acetylation as the signal that specifically promotes transcription initiation at enhancer-regulated genes. We propose that p300/CBP activity uses a "recruit-and-release" mechanism to simultaneously promote RNAPII recruitment and pause release and thereby enables kinetic activation of enhancer-mediated transcription.