Functional Roles of Acetylated Histone Marks at Mouse Meiotic Recombination Hotspots (sequencing). Mus musculus

Meiotic recombination is initiated by the Spo11 endonuclease, which directs DNA DSBs. We report here that the recombinogenic cores of active hotspots in mice harbor several histone H3 and H4 acetylation and methylation marks that are typical of open, active chromatin. Further, deposition of these histone marks is dynamic and manifest at spermatogonia and/or pre-leptotene meiotic cells, which would facilitate the formation of DSBs at leptotene. Importantly, there was concordance in the overlap of the histone mark ChIP profiles with nucleosome occupancy maps, which were determined by real-time PCR and whole genome sequencing (WGS) analyses of micococcal-nuclease resistance regions across four mouse meiotic hotspots (HS22, HS59.4, HS59.5 and HS61.1). Our study reveals that there are instructive roles of histone acetylated marks at meiotic recombination hotspot cores and that they are necessary to promote hotspot activity and crossover resolution. Overall design: Genome-wide sequencing of mono-nucleosomal mouse DNA using Illumina GAII Genome Analyzer.