Histone binding of ASF1 is required for fruiting body development but not for genome stability in the filamentous fungus Sordaria macrospora

The highly conserved eukaryotic histone chaperone ASF1 is involved in the assembly and disassembly of nucleosomes during transcription, DNA replication, and repair. It was the first chaperone discovered to be involved in all three of these processes. The filamentous fungus Sordaria macrospora is one of only two multicellular organisms where asf1 deletions are viable, which makes it useful for in vivo analysis of this central regulator of eukaryotic chromatin structure. Deletion of asf1 in S. macrospora leads to sterility, a reduction of DNA methylation, and upregulation of genes that are usually weakly expressed in the wild type. Here, we focused on the functions of the highly conserved core and the divergent C-terminal tail of ASF1, studied the effects of ASF1 on histone modifications, and tested its relevance for genomic stability. By co-immunoprecipitation and complementation analysis, we showed that substitutions of amino acid V94 or truncations of the C-terminal tail abolish histone binding and do not complement the sterile mutant phenotype. increment asf1 is sensitive to the DNA-damaging agent methyl methanesulfonate, while complementation strains, even those with non-histone-binding variants, regain wild type-like resistance. The histone marks H3K27me3 and H3K56ac were shown to be influenced by the histone-binding capability of ASF1. To aid in subsequent analyses, we generated a chromosome-resolved genome assembly of S. macrospora. By using Hi-C, we detected a tandem duplication of around 600 kb on chromosome 2 in the mutant. Crossing experiments indicated linkage between the viability of Delta asf1 strains and the presence of the duplication.