Histone H3.3 and its proteolytically processed form drive a cellular senescence program

In this study, we have uncovered novel proteolytic processing of the histone H3 tail in senescence models in primary fibroblasts and melanocytes. Cleavage of H3 tail occurs at two distinct residues and is mediated by Cathepsin L. We show that variant H3.3 is preferentially cleaved, and that cleaved histones are associated with chromatin and incorporated into nucleosomes. We also found that the histone chaperone ASF1a is required for chromatin incorporation of the cleaved histone species. Further, we show that overexpression of cleaved H3.3 induces a senescence program in fibroblasts in the absensence of oncogenic signaling. Overall design: For the RNA-seq studies, growing IMR90 fibroblasts were compared to cells induced to senesce via oncogene activation or cleaved H3.3 overexpression. Growing controls consist of IMR90 cells infected with empty retroviral construct pBabe and grown under normal conditions for 13 days prior to RNA isolation. For oncogene-induced senescence samples, IMR90s carrying a tamoxifen-inducible H-RasV12 retroviral construct were induced to senesce by addition of 10nM tamoxifen to the media for 8 days. Finally, IMR90s were infected with a retroviral construct expressing the cleaved form of H3.3 with a C-terminal Flag tag. RNA samples form this group were isolated at days 3 (early) and 13 (late) post-infection. In all cases, total RNA samples were isolated using RNeasy kit (Qiagen) and prepared at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Genomics Core Facility for poly A library construction and sequencing on IlluminaHiSeq 2500.

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Duarte LF, Young AR, Wang Z, Wu HA, Panda T, Kou Y, Kapoor A, Hasson D, Mills NR, Ma'ayan A, Narita M, Bernstein E