Reduced levels of histone H3 acetylation on the inactive X chromosome in human females

Novel antibodies were generated that are highly selective for either acetylated or unacetylated isoforms of histone H3, or the acetylated form of histone H4 in organisms as diverse as Tetrahymena and humans. Using these antibodies as pair-wise sets in immunocytological analyses, we demonstrate that the inactive X chromosome is hypoacetylated for both histone H3 and H4 in female mammalian cells, whereas the antibody that recognizes the unacetylated form of histone H3 identifies all chromosomes uniformly. These data verify and extend previous results and suggest that hypoacetylation of core histones may be a general feature of the chromatin along the inactive X chromosome.