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Updated: Apr 29, 2026

Repressing Gene Transcription by Redirecting Cellular Machinery with Chemical Epigenetic Modifiers
Published on: September 20, 2018
Centromeric histone variant CENP-A represses acetylation-dependent chromatin transcription that is relieved by
Jayasha Shandilya1, Parijat Senapati1, Fabienne Hans1
1Transcription and Disease Laboratory, Molecular Biology and Genetics Unit, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore 560064, India; Université Joseph Fourier-Grenoble 1, Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, Institut Albert Bonniot, U823, Site Santé-BP 170, 38042 Grenoble Cedex 9; Université de Lyon, Laboratoire de Biologie Moléculaire de la Cellule, CNRS-UMR 5239, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, Lyon; and Université de Lyon, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, CNRS USR 3010, Laboratoire Joliot-Curie, 69364 Lyon, France.
Abstract:
Mammalian centromeric histone H3 variant, CENP-A, is involved in maintaining the functional integrity and epigenetic inheritance of the centromere. CENP-A causes transcriptional repression of centromeric chromatin through an unknown mechanism. Here, we report that reconstituted CENP-A nucleosomes are amenable to ATP-dependent SWI/SNF-mediated remodelling but are less permissive to acetylation and acetylation-dependent in vitro chromatin transcription. Remarkably, the transcriptional repression of the CENP-A chromatinized template could be relieved by the ectopic addition of histone chaperone, nucleophosmin.
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