What's Up and Down with Histone Deacetylation and Transcription?

Abstract

There is little doubt regarding the biological significance of protein acetylation. Several new and important papers have shown that deacetylases can function in transcriptional repression. These studies additionally suggest many new lines of experimentation. For instance, are core histones and/or HMG proteins the critical downstream targets of the deacetylases? What are the functional consequences of protein acetylation? Why does Rpd3 affect both transcriptional repression and activation? To address some of these questions, it will be important to analyze the expression of endogenous or stably integrated genes rather than transiently transfected templates that are not efficiently packaged into chromatin (note, however, that many of the studies of Sin3 and Rpd3 in yeast have used native endogenous genes). It will also be interesting to investigate whether or not there is a large protein complex containing some or all of the factors shown in Figure 1Figure 1. There are many other questions and issues remaining, as we are in the early stages of understanding the various functions of protein acetylation. In the near future, we can look forward to many more interesting and important discoveries in this area.*To whom correspondence should be addressed.