UC San Diego

Enhancers are regulatory elements that increase transcription activity of genes. The general mechanism of enhancers is well known, but the role of chromatin structure in the mechanism is unclear. We wanted to study the nature of chromatin modifications and chromatin remodeling at enhancers. We determined that Brg1, the catalytic subunit of the human SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling complex, associates with enhancers by chromatin immunoprecipitation with massive parallel sequencing (ChIP -seq). We then observed that the subunits, BAF45a and BAF45d, of Brg1 Associated Factors (BAF complex) specifically bind to acetylated lysine 14 of histone H3 (H3K14ac) via their PHD domains by peptide pulldown assays. We confirmed that this acetylation mark is found at enhancers by ChIP-seq. Elucidating the relationship between the co-activator and the histone modification can help us better understand the role of chromatin structure in enhancer function