Deacetylation of H4-K16Ac and heterochromatin assembly in senescence

Background Cellular senescence is a stress response of mammalian cells leading to a durable arrest of cell proliferation that has been implicated in tumor suppression, wound healing, and aging. The proliferative arrest is mediated by transcriptional repression of genes essential for cell division by the retinoblastoma protein family. This repression is accompanied by varying degrees of heterochromatin assembly, but little is known regarding the molecular mechanisms involved.