Journal of Biomedicine and BiotechnologyVolume 2011 (2011), Article ID 148201, 2 pagesdoi:10.1155/2011/148201

Editorial

Protein Acetylation and the Physiological Role of HDACs

Patrick Matthias,¹ Christian Seiser,² and Minoru Yoshida³

¹Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, 4002 Basel, Switzerland²Medical University Vienna, 1030 Vienna, Austria³RIKEN Advanced Science Institute, Saitama 351-0198, Japan

Received 16 October 2011; Accepted 16 October 2011

Copyright © 2011 Patrick Matthias et al. Patrick Matthias et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

It was in 1964 that V. G. Allfrey and colleagues first reported the isolation of acetylated histones and speculated—well ahead of their time—about their possible role in RNA synthesis [1]. About ten years later, the nucleosome was defined as the basic unit of chromatin [2] and soon thereafter DNAseI hypersensitivity analysis of isolated HeLa cells nuclei demonstrated that histone acetylation impacts on chromatin structure [3].

Since then, the importance of acetylation for the regulation of chromatin and gene activity has been demonstrated by numerous studies and this posttranslational modification is now rivaling phosphorylation in its importance. The field benefitted enormously from the early identification of molecules, such as Trichostatin A, which inhibit the enzymes removing acetyl groups—histone deacetylases (HDACs)—and thus lead to hyperacetylation of histones and chromatin [4]. These HDAC inhibitors (HDACis) turned out to have very interesting biological effects, such as induction of differentiation in cellular model systems. In addition, it had been realized that HDACis show antiproliferative potential when applied to cultures of transformed cells [5] and this sparked an enormous interest in their potential use for therapeutic purposes. A variety of substances, coming from natural or synthetic sources, have been tested in cancer models, and also in other pathologies, such as neurodegeneration, autoimmunity, or inflammation: in many cases target they were found to be beneficial. These inhibitors usually all or most of the HDACs—there are eleven of them—and therefore it is not clear yet which HDAC(s) are implicated in which pathology. The last ten years have witnessed a wealth of clinical trials, primarily in cancer, and also more recently in other settings, and today two inhibitors—SAHA and romidepsin—have been approved for clinical treatment of cutaneous T cell lymphoma. In parallel to this, genetic analysis of HDACs has progressed, in particular in the mouse, where all HDACs have now been ablated. This analysis revealed that some HDACs, such as HDAC1 or 3, are essential genes [6, 7], while others are dispensable for development, but show specific phenotypes when ablated, for example, organism-wide increased tubulin acetylation in the case of HDAC6 knockout mice [8]. In addition, conditional alleles of these and other HDACs have been generated allowing to test their function in specific organs or in combinations, by using appropriate Cre-expressing mice lines. These studies identified important roles for HDACs, for example, in the nervous system, in the heart, or in lymphocytes [9–11].

This special issue deals with “protein acetylation and the physiological role of HDACs.” As should be evident from the important short introduction above, this is an exciting topic which has implications for basic research and a demonstrated increasing medical relevance.

Several reviews address the general role or regulation of HDACs (T. Hayakawa and J. I. Nakayama; C. Segre and S. M. Chiocca; A. Peserico and C. Simone). A number of reviews cover our recent understanding of the role of HDACs in cancer and various models are discussed, such as—among others—leukemia (C. Biagi et al.; L. Bagella and M. Federico), pancreatic cancer (A. Ouaissi et al.; C. Bevan and D. Lavery), breast cancer (A. Linares et al.), or the link between autophagy, apoptosis, and HDAC inhibition in cancer cells (H. Rikiishi). Also, several reviews address important aspects of HDAC function on nonhistone proteins (e.g., on interferon regulatory factor, A. Masumi) and in particular their role in the cytoplasm (S. Khochbin et al.; W.-M. Yang and Y.-L. Yao; C. Creppe and M. Buschbeck). The importance of HDACs on cardiac development and function or in hypoxia is also addressed (H. Kook and H. J. Kee; N. Sang and S. Chen) and a number of additional topics are touched upon by dedicated reviews or a few primary data papers.

In summary, this special issue gives an excellent overview of the current status of research on HDACs and should be a valuable source of reference material for students or researchers.

Patrick MatthiasChristian SeiserMinoru Yoshida

References

V.G. Allfrey, R. Faulkner, and A. E. Mirsky, “Acetylation and methylation of histones and their possible role in the regulation of Rna synthesis,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 51, pp. 786–794, 1964.

R. D. Kornberg, “Chromatin structure: a repeating unit of histones and DNA,” Science, vol. 184, no. 4139, pp. 868–871, 1974.

G. Vidali, L. C. Boffa, E. M. Bradbury, and V. G. Allfrey, “Butyrate suppression of histone deacetylation leads to accumulation of multiacetylated forms of histones H3 and H4 and increased DNase I sensitivity of the associated DNA sequence,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 75, no. 5, pp. 2239–2243, 1978.

M. Yoshida, M. Kijima, M. Akita, and T. Beppu, “Potent and specific inhibition of mammalian histone deacetylase both in vivo and in vitro by trichostatin A,” Journal of Biological Chemistry, vol. 265, no. 28, pp. 17174–17179, 1990.

M. Yoshida and T. Beppu, “Reversible arrest of proliferation of rat 3Y1 fibroblasts in both the G1 and G2 phases by trichostatin A,” Experimental Cell Research, vol. 177, no. 1, pp. 122–131, 1988.

S. Bhaskara, B. J. Chyla, J. M. Amann et al., “Deletion of histone deacetylase 3 reveals critical roles in S phase progression and DNA damage control,” Molecular Cell, vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 61–72, 2008.

G. Lagger, D. O'Carroll, M. Rembold et al., “Essential function of histone deacetylase 1 in proliferation control and CDK inhibitor repression,” EMBO Journal, vol. 21, no. 11, pp. 2672–2681, 2002.

Y. Zhang, S. Kwon, T. Yamaguchi et al., “Mice lacking histone deacetylase 6 have hyperacetylated tubulin but are viable and develop normally,” Molecular and Cellular Biology, vol. 28, no. 5, pp. 1688–1701, 2008.

F. Ye, Y. Chen, T. Hoang et al., “HDAC1 and HDAC2 regulate oligodendrocyte differentiation by disrupting the beta-catenin-TCF interaction,” Nature Neuroscience, vol. 12, no. 7, pp. 829–838, 2009.

R. L. Montgomery, C. A. Davis, M. J. Potthoff et al., “Histone deacetylases 1 and 2 redundantly regulate cardiac morphogenesis, growth, and contractility,” Genes and Development, vol. 21, no. 14, pp. 1790–1802, 2007.

T. Yamaguchi, F. Cubizolles, Y. Zhang et al., “Histone deacetylases 1 and 2 act in concert to promote the G1-to-S progression,” Genes and Development, vol. 24, no. 5, pp. 455–469, 2010.