Principal Investigator Laurie Ann Boyer
Histone variants are evolutionarily conserved non-allelic variants of the major histone proteins that can have significant differences in their primary sequence and on the biophysical properties of nucleosomes. Unlike the cannonical histones, variants are expressed throughout the cell cycle, deposited into chromatin in a replication-independent manner, and are thought to have evolved specialized functions. Histone variants can localize to discrete regions of the genome and play important roles in genome integrity, gene regulation, X-inactivation, and DNA repair. The evolutionarily conserved H2A variant, H2AZ, is essential for metazoan development and has been implicated in heterochromatin formation and gene regulation from fungi to plants to metazoans. Notably, loss of H2AZ results in early embryonic lethality prior to implantation in mice, however the function of H2AZ during mammalian development remains unclear. Our goal is to elucidate the mechanisms by which histone variants such as H2AZ contribute to development through establishment and maintenance of specialized chromatin domains.