What are Histone Modifications?
Epigenetic modifications such as phosphorylation, acetylation and methylation at specific amino acid residues on the histone tails influence higher-order chromatin structure that regulates the nuclear processes of transcription, chromosome packaging and DNA damage repair1. Many of these specific histone modifications are conserved throughout eukaryotes. While the biological significance of some histone modifications remains to be understood, some have been demonstrated to correlate very closely with specific cellular states like transcriptional activity2,3.