title: Histone chaperone CAF-1: essential roles in multi-cellular organism development.
abstract: More and more studies have shown chromatin remodelers and histone modifiers play essential roles in regulating developmental patterns by organizing specific chromosomal architecture to establish programmed transcriptional profiles, with implications that histone chaperones execute a coordinating role in these processes. Chromatin assembly factor-1 (CAF-1), an evolutionarily conserved three-subunit protein complex, was identified as a histone chaperone coupled with DNA replication and repair in cultured mammalian cells and yeasts. Interestingly, recent findings indicate CAF-1 may have important regulatory roles during development by interacting with specific transcription factors and epigenetic regulators. In this review, we focus on the essential roles of CAF-1 in regulating heterochromatin organization, asymmetric cell division, and specific signal transduction through epigenetic modulations of the chromatin. In the end, we aim at providing a current image of facets of CAF-1 as a histone chaperone to orchestrate cell proliferation and differentiation during multi-cellular organism development.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Datun Road 15, Beijing, 100101, China.
authors.forename: Zhongsheng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: Jiyong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Wu-Min
authors.initials: WM
authors.lastname: Deng
authors.forename: Renjie
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Jiao
mesh_terms: D002454:Cell Differentiation / Q000502:physiology; D002455:Cell Division / Q000502:physiology*; D049109:Cell Proliferation / Q000502:physiology; D056504:Chromatin Assembly Factor-1 / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D002875:Chromosomes / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D044127:Epigenesis, Genetic / Q000502:physiology; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental / Q000502:physiology*; D006570:Heterochromatin / Q000502:physiology*; D006657:Histones / Q000737:chemistry; D006801:Humans; D008958:Models, Molecular; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000502:physiology*; D014157:Transcription Factors
chemical_list: C489780:CNOT8 protein, human; D056504:Chromatin Assembly Factor-1; D006570:Heterochromatin; D006657:Histones; D014157:Transcription Factors