Identification of a complex functioning in histone H3 deacetylation and flowering in Arabidopsis. Arabidopsis thaliana

HDA6 is a histone deacetylase (HDAC) and involved in the transcriptional regulation of genes and transposable elements (TEs) in Arabidopsis thaliana. However, relatively little is known about how HDA6 specially regulate the transcription of gene regions. Here, we uncover a novel protein complex containing HDA6, Harbinger transposon-derived proteins (HHP1, SANT1, SANT2, SANT3 and SANT4), and MBD proteins (MBD1, MBD2, and MBD4). Both of the genome-wide transcriptional and histone H3 acetylation profiling show that SANT proteins and HDA6 modulate genes expression through histone H3 deacetylation. Overall, our findings suggest that harbinger transposon-derived SANT domain containing proteins are required for histone deacetylation and transcriptional regulation in plants.