The role of histone H2A tails in heat shock survival and thermotolerance acquisition.

摘要

Using Saccharomyces cerevisiae, our lab has previously demonstrated that particular histone H2A tail residues are required for the induction of a number of stress response pathways. Focusing on heat stress, this work demonstrates that individual H2A tat residues S122 and T126 play a significant rote in survival of prolonged heat shock, while S122 and K127 are important for the acquisition of thermotolerance. Strains bearing deletions of either of the H2A tails (hta1-DeltaC and hta1-DeltaN ) demonstrate severe heat sensitive and thermointolerant phenotypes. To determine the cause of the observed phenotypes we analyzed the expression of a number of heat shock genes that are rapidly expressed in response to heat shock (HSP26, HSP70, HSP82, and HSP104) using either northern blot or rtRT-PCR. Our results suggest that white H2A residues are crucial for heat stress response and thermotolerance, this is not due to transcriptional defects for the suite of HSP genes tested.