title: The mammalian ortholog of Drosophila MOF that acetylates histone H4 lysine 16 is essential for embryogenesis and oncogenesis.
abstract: The mammalian ortholog of the Drosophila MOF (males absent on the first) gene product is a histone H4 lysine 16-specific acetyltransferase. Recent studies have shown that depletion of human MOF (hMOF) in human cell lines leads to genomic instability, spontaneous chromosomal aberrations, cell cycle defects, altered nuclear morphology, reduced transcription of certain genes, and defective DNA damage response to ionizing radiation (IR). Here we show that MOF plays an essential role in mammals during embryogenesis and oncogenesis. Ablation of the mouse Mof gene (mMof) by gene targeting resulted in early embryonic lethality and cell death. Lethality correlated with the loss of H4 lysine 16 acetylation (H4K16ac) and could not be rescued by concomitant inactivation of ATM or p53. In comparison to primary cells or normal tissue, all immortalized human normal and tumor cell lines and primary tumors demonstrated similar or elevated hMOF and H4K16ac levels. Accordingly, MOF overexpression correlated with increased cellular proliferation, oncogenic transformation, and tumor growth. Thus, these data reveal that the acetylation of histone H4 at K16 by MOF is an epigenetic signature of cellular proliferation common to both embryogenesis and oncogenesis and that MOF is an essential factor for embryogenesis and oncogenesis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Washington University School of Medicine, 4511 Forest Park, St. Louis, MO 63108, USA.
authors.forename: Arun
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gupta
authors.forename: T Geraldine
authors.initials: TG
authors.lastname: Guerin-Peyrou
authors.forename: Girdhar G
authors.initials: GG
authors.lastname: Sharma
authors.forename: Changwon
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Manjula
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Agarwal
authors.forename: Ramesh K
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Ganju
authors.forename: Shruti
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pandita
authors.forename: Kyunghee
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.forename: Saraswati
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sukumar
authors.forename: Raj K
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Pandita
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ludwig
authors.forename: Tej K
authors.initials: TK
authors.lastname: Pandita
mesh_terms: D000107:Acetylation; D000818:Animals; D049109:Cell Proliferation; D002471:Cell Transformation, Neoplastic / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D029721:Drosophila Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000196:embryology* / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D020964:Embryo Loss / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D004622:Embryo, Mammalian / Q000196:embryology / Q000378:metabolism; D017353:Gene Deletion; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D051548:Histone Acetyltransferases / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D006657:Histones / Q000378:metabolism*; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D009687:Nuclear Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000235:genetics; D016159:Tumor Suppressor Protein p53 / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D006657:Histones; D009687:Nuclear Proteins; D012333:RNA, Messenger; D016159:Tumor Suppressor Protein p53; D051548:Histone Acetyltransferases; C496552:KAT8 protein, human; C000622683:Kat8 protein, mouse; C111063:mof protein, Drosophila