Histone acetylation dependent microarray analysis uncovers a role for Tip60 HAT activity in nervous system function and general metabolism

Tip60 is a key histone acetyltransferase (HAT) enzyme that plays a central role in diverse biological processes critical for general cell function, however the chromatin-mediated cell-type specific developmental pathways that are dependent exclusively upon the HAT activity of Tip60 remain to be explored. Here, we investigate the role of Tip60 HAT activity in transcriptional control during multicellular development, in vivo by examining genome-wide changes in gene expression in a Drosophila model system specifically depleted for endogenous dTip60 HAT function. We show that amino acid residue E431 in the catalytic HAT domain of dTip60 is critical for the acetylation of endogenous histone H4 in our fly model in vivo, and demonstrate that dTip60 HAT activity is essential for multicellular development. Moreover, our results uncover a novel role for Tip60 HAT activity in controlling neuronal specific gene expression profiles essential for nervous system function as well as a central regulatory role for Tip60 HAT function in general metabolism. Drosophila larvae ubiquitously expressing either our dTIP60 HAT specific mutant or an additional copy of wild type dTIP60 were selected along with age-matched wild type controls for RNA extraction. Two samples, each containing a pool of thirty-five staged whole larvae, were collected from each respective genotypic cross, and were used for hybridization on a separate Affymetrix microarray.