CpG signalling, H2A.Z/H3 acetylation and microRNA-mediated deferred self-attenuation orchestrate foetal NOS3 expression.

Background: An adverse intrauterine environment leads to permanent physiological changes including vascular tone regulation, potentially influencing the risk for adult vascular diseases. We therefore aimed to monitor responsive NOS3 expression in human umbilical artery endothelial cells (HUAEC) and to study the underlying epigenetic signatures involved in its regulation.

Results: NOS3 and STAT3 mRNA levels were elevated in HUAEC of patients who suffered from placental insufficiency.

Differential expression of histone H3 genes and selective association of the variant H3.7 with a specific sequence class in Stylonychia macronuclear development.

Background: Regulation of chromatin structure involves deposition of selective histone variants into nucleosome arrays. Numerous histone H3 variants become differentially expressed by individual nanochromosomes in the course of macronuclear differentiation in the spirotrichous ciliate Stylonychia lemnae. Their biological relevance remains to be elucidated.

The evolutionary history of histone H3 suggests a deep eukaryotic root of chromatin modifying mechanisms.

Background: The phenotype of an organism is an outcome of both its genotype, encoding the primary sequence of proteins, and the developmental orchestration of gene expression. The substrate of gene expression in eukaryotes is the chromatin, whose fundamental units are nucleosomes composed of DNA wrapped around each two of the core histone types H2A, H2B, H3 and H4. Key regulatory steps involved in the determination of chromatin conformations are posttranslational modifications (PTM) at histone tails as well as the assembly of histone variants into nucleosomal arrays.