Imaging the response to DNA damage in heterochromatin domains reveals core principles of heterochromatin maintenance.

ABSTRACT: Heterochromatin is a critical chromatin compartment, whose integrity governs genome stability and cell fate transitions. How heterochromatin features, including higher-order chromatin folding and histone modifications associated with transcriptional silencing, are maintained following a genotoxic stress challenge is unknown. Here, we establish a system for targeting UV damage to pericentric heterochromatin in mammalian cells and for tracking the heterochromatin response to UV in real time. We uncover profound heterochromatin compaction changes during repair, orchestrated by the UV damage sensor DDB2, which stimulates linker histone displacement from chromatin. Despite massive heterochromatin unfolding, heterochromatin-specific histone modifications and transcriptional silencing are maintai

SUBMITTER: Fortuny A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8065061 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature