REVIEW Chromatin Remodeling and Transcriptional Regulation

Extensive studies in the past few years have begun to dem-onstrate that chromosome structure plays a critical role in transcriptional regulation. Two highly conserved mecha-nisms for altering chromosome structure have been identi-fied: 1) post-translational modification of histones and 2) adenosine triphosphate (ATP)-dependent chromosome re-modeling. Acetylation of histone lysine residues has been known for three decades to be associated with transcrip-tional activation. Recent discoveries, however, show that a number of transcriptional regulators are histone acetylases or histone deacetylases. Specific DNA-binding transcription factors recruit histone acetylases and deacetylases to pro-moters to activate or repress transcription. These results strongly support the notion that histone acetylation and deacetylation play an important role in transcriptional regu