RT Journal
A1 Sawicka, Anna
A1 Hartl, Dominik
A1 Goiser, Malgorzata
A1 Pusch, Oliver
A1 Stocsits, Roman R.
A1 Tamir, Ido M.
A1 Mechtler, Karl
A1 Seiser, Christian
T1 H3S28 phosphorylation is a hallmark of the transcriptional response to cellular stress
JF Genome Research 
JO Genome Research 
YR 2014 
FD November 01 
VO 24 
IS 11 
SP 1808 
OP 1820 
DO 10.1101/gr.176255.114 
UL http://genome.cshlp.org/content/24/11/1808.abstract 
AB The selectivity of transcriptional responses to extracellular cues is reflected by the deposition of stimulus-specific chromatin marks. Although histone H3 phosphorylation is a target of numerous signaling pathways, its role in transcriptional regulation remains poorly understood. Here, for the first time, we report a genome-wide analysis of H3S28 phosphorylation in a mammalian system in the context of stress signaling. We found that this mark targets as many as 50% of all stress-induced genes, underlining its importance in signal-induced transcription. By combining ChIP-seq, RNA-seq, and mass spectrometry we identified the factors involved in the biological interpretation of this histone modification. We found that MSK1/2-mediated phosphorylation of H3S28 at stress-responsive promoters contributes to the dissociation of HDAC corepressor complexes and thereby to enhanced local histone acetylation and subsequent transcriptional activation of stress-induced genes. Our data reveal a novel function of the H3S28ph mark in the activation of mammalian genes in response to MAP kinase pathway activation.