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Updated: May 6, 2026

Chromatin Immunoprecipitation ChIP to Assay Dynamic Histone Modification in Activated Gene Expression in Human Cells
Published on: July 29, 2010
Immune activation by histones: plusses and minuses in inflammation
1Department of Medicine, Medical Research Service, Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA.
Abstract:
Histones are highly cationic proteins that are essential components of the cell nucleus, interacting with DNA to form the nucleosome and regulating transcription. Histones, however, can transit from the cell nucleus during cell death and, once in an extracellular location, can serve as danger signals and activate immune cells. An article in this issue of the European Journal of Immunology [Eur. J. Immunol. 2013. 43: 3336-3342] reports that histones can activate monocyte-derived DCs via the NRLP3 inflammasome to induce the production of IL-1β. As such, histones, which can also stimulate TLRs, may drive events in the immunopathogenesis of a wide range of acute and chronic diseases marked by sterile inflammation. While the mechanism of this stimulation is not known, the positive charge of histones may provide a structural element to promote interaction with cells and activation of downstream signaling systems.
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