Monoubiquitination of histone H2B is a crucial regulator of the transcriptome during memory formation

Shaghayegh Navabpour; Kayla Farrell; Shannon E. Kincaid; Nour Omar; Madeline Musaus; Yu Lin; Hehuang Xie; Timothy J. Jarome

doi:10.1101/lm.053912.123

Monoubiquitination of histone H2B is a crucial regulator of the transcriptome during memory formation

¹Translational Biology, Medicine and Health Graduate Program, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061, USA
²School of Animal Sciences, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061, USA
³School of Neuroscience, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061, USA
⁴Department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathobiology, Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061, USA
⁵Fralin Life Science Institute at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061, USA

Corresponding author: tjjarome{at}vt.edu

↵6 Present address: Department of Pathology, Stanford University, Stanford 94305, CA, USA

Abstract

Posttranslational modification of histone proteins is critical for memory formation. Recently, we showed that monoubiquitination of histone H2B at lysine 120 (H2Bub) is critical for memory formation in the hippocampus. However, the transcriptome controlled by H2Bub remains unknown. Here, we found that fear conditioning in male rats increased or decreased the expression of 86 genes in the hippocampus but, surprisingly, siRNA-mediated knockdown of the H2Bub ligase, Rnf20, abolished changes in all but one of these genes. These findings suggest that monoubiquitination of histone H2B is a crucial regulator of the transcriptome during memory formation.

Footnotes

Article is online at http://www.learnmem.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/lm.053912.123.

Received December 20, 2023.
Accepted March 7, 2024.

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