TY - JOUR

T1 - A bi-terminal protein ligation strategy to probe chromatin structure during DNA damage

AU - Kilic, Sinan

AU - Fierz, Beat

N1 - Funding Information: We thank Maeva Tobler and Jade A. Chevalley for materials, and Ruud Hovius for comments on the manuscript. This work was supported by the Sandoz Family Foundation, the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant 31003A_173169), the European Research Council through the 2017 Consolidator Grant chromo-SUMMIT (724022) and EPFL (B. F.). S. K. gratefully acknowledges a Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds PhD fellowship. Publisher Copyright: © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2018.

PY - 2018

Y1 - 2018

N2 - The cellular response to DNA damage results in a signaling cascade that primes chromatin for repair. Combinatorial post-translational modifications (PTMs) play an important role in this process by altering the physical properties of chromatin and recruiting downstream factors. One key signal integrator is the histone variant H2A.X, which is phosphorylated at a C-terminal serine (S139ph), and ubiquitylated within its N-terminal tail at lysines 13 and 15 (K13/15ub). How these PTMs directly impact chromatin structure and thereby facilitate DNA repair is not well understood. Detailed studies require synthetic access to such N- and C-terminally modified proteins. This is complicated by the requirement for protecting groups allowing multi-fragment assembly. Here, we report a semi-synthetic route to generate simultaneously N- and C-terminally modified proteins using genetically encoded orthogonal masking groups. Applied to H2A.X, expression of a central protein fragment, containing a protected N-terminal cysteine and a C-terminal thioester masked as a split intein, enables sequential C- and N-terminal protein modification and results in the convergent production of H2A.X carrying K15ub and S139ph. Using single-molecule FRET between defined nucleosomes in synthetic chromatin fibers, we then show that K15 ubiquitylation (but not S139ph) impairs nucleosome stacking in tetranucleosome units, opening chromatin during DNA repair.

AB - The cellular response to DNA damage results in a signaling cascade that primes chromatin for repair. Combinatorial post-translational modifications (PTMs) play an important role in this process by altering the physical properties of chromatin and recruiting downstream factors. One key signal integrator is the histone variant H2A.X, which is phosphorylated at a C-terminal serine (S139ph), and ubiquitylated within its N-terminal tail at lysines 13 and 15 (K13/15ub). How these PTMs directly impact chromatin structure and thereby facilitate DNA repair is not well understood. Detailed studies require synthetic access to such N- and C-terminally modified proteins. This is complicated by the requirement for protecting groups allowing multi-fragment assembly. Here, we report a semi-synthetic route to generate simultaneously N- and C-terminally modified proteins using genetically encoded orthogonal masking groups. Applied to H2A.X, expression of a central protein fragment, containing a protected N-terminal cysteine and a C-terminal thioester masked as a split intein, enables sequential C- and N-terminal protein modification and results in the convergent production of H2A.X carrying K15ub and S139ph. Using single-molecule FRET between defined nucleosomes in synthetic chromatin fibers, we then show that K15 ubiquitylation (but not S139ph) impairs nucleosome stacking in tetranucleosome units, opening chromatin during DNA repair.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85045744985&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1039/c8sc00681d

DO - 10.1039/c8sc00681d

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85045744985

VL - 9

SP - 3704

EP - 3709

JO - Chemical Science

JF - Chemical Science

SN - 2041-6520

IS - 15

ER -