GSE115682
Cdk9 and H2Bub1 signal to Clr6-CII/Rpd3S to suppress aberrant antisense transcription
Histone H2B mono-ubiquitylation (H2Bub1) and phosphorylation of elongation factor Spt5 by cyclin-dependent kinase 9 (Cdk9) occur during transcription by RNA polymerase II (RNAPII), and are mutually dependent in fission yeast. How Cdk9 activity and H2Bub1 cooperate to regulate the expression of individual genes remains unclear. Here we show Cdk9 inhibition or H2Bub1 loss induces intragenic antisense transcription of distinct gene subsets; ablation of both pathways derepresses antisense transcription of over half the genome. H2Bub1 and phospho-Spt5 have similar genome-wide distributions; both are enriched in coding regions, and H2Bub1 levels are directly proportional to those of phospho-Spt5. Cdk9-dependence of antisense suppression correlates with high H2Bub1 occupancy, and with promoter-proximal RNAPII pausing. Combined reduction of Cdk9 activity and loss of H2Bub1 prevent recruitment of the histone deacetylase Clr6-CII to transcribed genes, and lead to decreased histone occupancy and increased histone acetylation within gene coding regions. These results uncover new pathways linking regulators of RNAPII transcription elongation to suppression of aberrant antisense transcription, and demonstrate novel interactions between co-transcriptional histone modification pathways. Overall design: ChIP-seq: Data represent eighteen different ChIP-seq experiments in S. pombe, performed in biological replicates. There are raw sequencing files for all biological replicates and processed files after combining the replicates. Please note that the *Combined.bigwig processed data was generated from both rep1 and rep2 data combined and is available as Series supplementary files.