In humans and other eukaryotes, histone post-translational modifications (hPTMs) play an essential role in the epigenetic control of gene expression. In trypanosomatid parasites, conversely, gene regulation occurs mainly at the post-transcriptional level. However, our group has recently shown that hPTMs are abundant and varied in Trypanosoma cruzi, the etiological agent of Chagas Disease, signaling for possible conserved epigenetic functions. Here, we applied an optimized mass spectrometry-based proteomic workflow to provide a high-confidence comprehensive map of hPTMs, distributed in all canonical, variant and linker histones of T. cruzi. Our work expands the number of known T. cruzi hPTMs by almost 2-fold, representing the largest dataset of hPTMs available to any trypanosomatid to date, and can be used as a basis for functional studies on the dynamic regulation of chromatin by epigenetic mechanisms and the selection of candidates for the development of epigenetic drugs against trypanosomatids.

在人类和其他真核生物中，组蛋白翻译后修饰（hPTM）在基因表达的表观遗传控制中起着至关重要的作用。相反，在锥虫寄生虫中，基因调控主要发生在转录后水平。然而，我们的小组最近表明，恰加斯氏病的病原体克氏锥虫中的hPTM丰富且多样，表明可能存在保守的表观遗传功能。在这里，我们采用了基于光谱质量优化工作流程蛋白质提供hPTMs的高可信度的全面的地图，分布在所有的规范，变异和连接组蛋白锥虫。我们的工作扩大了已知的克鲁斯锥虫的数量 hPTM几乎是原来的2倍，代表了迄今为止任何锥虫均可获得的最大的hPTM数据集，可作为通过表观遗传机制动态调节染色质和选择表观遗传药物开发候选物的功能研究的基础反对锥虫病。