Development of rabbit monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies for detection of site-specific histone modifications and their application in analyzing overall modification levels

In addition to DNA sequence information, site-specific histone modifications are another important determinant of gene expression in a eukaryotic organism. We selected four modification sites in common histones that are known to significantly impact chromatin function and generated monoclonal or polyclonal antibodies that recognize each of those site-specific modifications. We used these antibodies to demonstrate that the site-specific histone modification levels remain relatively constant in different organs of the same organism. We also compared the levels of selected histone modifications among several representative organisms and found that site-specific modifications are highly variable among different organisms, providing new insight into the evolutionary divergence of specific histone modifications.