Epigenetic mechanisms play an essential role in cell differentiation and maintenance of cell function. Not surprisingly, corruption of epigenetic machinery often results in disastrous consequences that preclude cells from normal cellular responses such as proliferation, differentiation and apoptosis.
Our research is focused on the epigenetic factor, histone variant H2A.B, that is mainly expressed during spermatogenesis and is involved in the activation of gene expression and mRNA splicing in post-meiotic germ cells. Our recent studies have demonstrated other, rather unique behavioural trends for this histone variant, such as being stable in a non-chromatin-associated state, the ability to directly bind RNA and being involved in histone mRNA degradation. This presentation will describe our research findings in more detail and will hopefully show enough evidence to demonstrate the unique and multifaceted nature of histone proteins in their non-pathological cellular environment.