Pilendra Kumar Thakre

Background

About Pilendra Kumar Thakre

The availability of histone H3 and H4 mutant library in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae offers several advantages to study the epigenetic mechanisms involved in the various stress conditions. In the present study, we have utilized the histone H3/H4 amino acid mutant library to probe the functional aspect of histone residues in the DNA damage, arsenite toxicity, and amino acid stress response. We have identified some histone H3 and H4 residues, which play an important role in the regulation of different stress response signaling and gene expression in yeast. We report that certain residues are critical for genomic stability, which are involved in the maintenance of the dNTPs pool by regulation of the RNR genes and cell survival in the presence of genotoxic agents. Some of the histone residues are also involved in the regulation of arsenite exporter ACR3 expression and Fps1 activity through Hog1 signaling in the presence of arsenite stress. The substitution of histone H3R72 residues with alanine renders yeast cells auxotrophic for isoleucine and required for the regulation of the Ilv1 gene function in the absence of leucine in minimal media. In summary, these studies favour the use of chemical-epigenetic approaches in yeast for investigating the mode of action of stress response induced by pollutants, toxicants, and nutritional starvation.