Genome-wide profiling of histone lysine butyrylation reveals positive regulation of transcription in rice

Lysine butyrylation (Kbu) is a new-found histone modification in rice (Oryza sativa). Chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing (ChIP-seq) results showed a major enrichment of Kbu in genebody region, especially in exon region. We also found an obvious correlation between Kbu and gene expression levels in combination with RNA-seq. We further integrated DNase-seq and other 12 histone modifications data in rice, to explore the concurrence among DNase-Hypersensitive (DH) sites and all these histone modifications. Similar profiles were detected among Kbu and several acetylation modifications such as H3K4ac, H3K9ac and H3K23ac, indicated that Kbu modification is an active signal of transcription. GO enrichment analysis revealed that histone Kbu most probably involve in cellular process like cytoplasm and membrane. All these researches provide plenty of resource for futher studies on histone Kbu and other epigenetic regulations in plants.