The role of histone H2B ubiquitination in transcription and chromatin dynamics
Monoubiquitination of histone H2B (H2B-Ub) plays a role in transcription, DNA 
replication and the DNA damage response. H2B-Ub is a rapidly turned over histone mark that is found in actively transcribed regions. H2B-Ub plays a role in recruiting the histone chaperone, FACT, which mediates both disassembly and assembly of nucleosomes during transcription and DNA replication. Monoubiquitinated H2B also activates histone methyltransferases that methylate lysine residues in histone H3 at K4 and K79, which are marks of actively transcribed genes. We are interested in the mechanism by which the attachment of ubiquitin to histone H2B promotes transcription activation.
Publications
Zhao F, Hicks CW, Wolberger C. Mechanism of histone H2B monoubiquitination by Bre1. (2023) Nat Struct Mol Biol. 30(11):1623-1627. doi: 10.1038/s41594-023-01137-x. doi: 10.1038/s41594-023-01137-x
Rahman S, Hoffmann NA, Worden EJ, Smith ML, Namitz KEW, Knutson BA, Cosgrove MS, Wolberger C. Multistate structures of the MLL1-WRAD complex bound to H2B-ubiquitinated nucleosome. (2022) Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 119(38):e2205691119. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2205691119.
Worden EJ, Zhang X, Wolberger C. (2020) Structural basis for COMPASS recognition of an H2B-ubiquitinated nucleosome. Elife 9. pii: e53199. doi: 10.7554/eLife.53199.
Worden EJ, Hoffmann N, Hicks C, Wolberger C (2019) The mechanism of cross-talk between histone H2B ubiquitination and H3 methylation by Dot1L. Cell 176(6):1490-1501. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2019.02.002
Nune, Morgan, Connell, McCullough, Jbara, Sun, Brik, Formosa, Wolberger (2019) FACT and Ubp10 collaborate to modulate H2B deubiquitination and nucleosome dynamics. eLife pii: e40988. doi: 10.7554/eLife.40988