Establishment Of Cohesion 1 Homolog 1 (ESCO1)

ESCO1 belongs to a conserved family of acetyltransferases involved in sister chromatid cohesion. The deduced 840-amino acid protein has 2 N-terminal domains similar to delta- and beta-type linker histone proteins and a C-terminal domain similar to the core domain of Ctf7. Northern blot analysis detected an EFO1 transcript in most human tissues tested, with elevated expression in skeletal muscle. Fluorescence-tagged EFO1 localized to nuclei of transfected HeLa cells.

RNA interference in HeLa cells showed that EFO1 was required for sister chromatid cohesion.There was a significant increase in mitotic cells with unpaired chromatids (67%) when EFO1 was depleted and a further increase in unpaired chromatids (93%) when both EFO1 and EFO2 were reduced simultaneously.