Genome-wide histone modifications: Gaining specificity by preventing promiscuity

More than 20 residues within the four core histone proteins of the nucleosome are potential sites of post-translational modifications, such as methylation, acetylation, ubiquitination and phosphorylation. It has been hypothesized that specific patterns of these modifications on the nucleosome facilitate recruitment of non-histone proteins to chromatin. When such modifications are restricted to particular regions of the genome, they seem to play an important role in creating specific chromatin domains. However, more recent results suggest that some histone modifications, particularly those that exist on a genome-wide scale, act to reduce nonspecific binding by chromatin proteins involved in silencing. This decrease of promiscuous binding ensures that the silent chromatin proteins are not titrated away from their normal locations on chromosomes. We suggest that preventing such promiscuous binding of chromatin proteins is an important part of generating specificity to create chromatin domains and overall chromosome organization.