Résumé
The microbiota present in the intestine of an organism have vital role in aiding digestion by metabolising dietary fibre to produce short chain fatty acids (SCFA), including butyrate, an important energy source in the gut.
Post-translational modification of histone proteins, which structure the DNA, is an important mechanism to regulate gene expression. Histone crotonylation is a newly discovered modification, which is enriched in the intestine and associated with active chromatin. We found that butyrate promotes histone crotonylation. Additionally, we found that HDAC1, HDAC2 and HDAC3 are decrotonylases. When SCFA concentrations were reduced in mice by administering antibiotics, a reduction in histone crotonylation was observed. These intriguing findings suggest that modulating the abundance of crotonylation may be an important mechanism for the cell to respond to the presence of microbiota in the intestine.