Probing the acetylation code of histone H4

Histone modifications play crucial roles in genome regulation with lysine acetylation being implicated in transcriptional control. Here we report a proteome-wide investigation of the acetylation-dependent protein-protein interactions of the N-terminal tail of histone H4. Quantitative peptide-based affinity MS experiments using the SILAC approach determined the interactomes of H4 tails monoacetylated at the four known acetylation sites K5, K8, K12, and K16, bis-acetylated at K5/K12, triple-acetylated at K8/12/16 and fully tetra-acetylated. A set of 29 proteins was found enriched on the fully acetylated H4 tail while specific binders of the mono and bis-acetylated tails were barely detectable. These observations are in good agreement with earlier reports indicating that the H4 acetylation state establishes its regulatory effects in a cumulative manner rather than via site-specific recruitment of regulatory proteins.