title: The Neurospora crassa White Collar-1 dependent blue light response requires acetylation of histone H3 lysine 14 by NGF-1.
abstract: Blue light-induced transcription in Neurospora crassa is regulated by the White Collar-1 (WC-1) photoreceptor. We report that residue K14 of histone H3 associated with the light-inducible albino-3 (al-3) promoter becomes transiently acetylated after photoinduction. This acetylation depends on WC-1. The relevance of this chromatin modification was directly evaluated in vivo by construction of a Neurospora strain with a mutated histone H3 gene (hH3(K14Q)). This strain phenocopies a wc-1 blind mutant and shows a strong reduction of light-induced transcriptional activation of both al-3 and vivid (vvd), another light-inducible gene. We mutated Neurospora GCN Five (ngf-1), which encodes a homologue of the yeast HAT Gcn5p, to generate a strain impaired in H3 K14 acetylation and found that it was defective in photoinduction. Together, our findings reveal a direct link between histone modification and light signaling in Neurospora and contribute to the developing understanding of the molecular mechanisms operating in light-inducible gene activation.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Genetica e Biologia Molecolare, Università di Roma La Sapienza, 00185 Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Benedetto
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Grimaldi
authors.forename: Pierluca
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Coiro
authors.forename: Patrizia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Filetici
authors.forename: Emanuela
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Berge
authors.forename: Joseph R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Dobosy
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Freitag
authors.forename: Eric U
authors.initials: EU
authors.lastname: Selker
authors.forename: Paola
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ballario
mesh_terms: D000107:Acetylation; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins / Q000502:physiology*; D005656:Fungal Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000502:physiology; D017930:Genes, Reporter; D051548:Histone Acetyltransferases / Q000502:physiology; D006657:Histones / Q000378:metabolism*; D008027:Light; D008239:Lysine; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D020932:Nerve Growth Factor / Q000494:pharmacology*; D009492:Neurospora crassa / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000502:physiology; D010786:Photoreceptor Cells; D011401:Promoter Regions, Genetic; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; D005656:Fungal Proteins; D006657:Histones; D014157:Transcription Factors; C105589:wc-1 protein, Neurospora crassa; D020932:Nerve Growth Factor; D051548:Histone Acetyltransferases; D008239:Lysine