p97/VCP drives turnover of SUMOylated centromeric CCAN proteins and CENP-A

The centromere is a unique chromatin domain that links sister chromatids and forms the attachment site for spindle microtubules in mitosis. Centromere inheritance is largely DNA sequence-independent but strongly reliant on a self-propagating chromatin domain featuring nucleosomes containing the H3 variant CENP-A. Unlike other histones, CENP-A is maintained with unusually high stability in chromatin. Previously, we have shown that mitotic maintenance of CENP-A and other CCAN proteins is controlled by a dynamic SUMO cycle and that the deSUMOylase SENP6 is necessary for stable maintenance of CENP-A at the centromere. Here, we discover that the removal of SENP6 leads to a rapid loss of the constitutive centromere-associated network (CCAN), followed by a delayed loss of centromeric CENP-A, indicating that the CCAN is the primary SUMO target. We found the ATP-dependent segregase p97/VCP removes centromeric CENP-A in a SUMO-dependent manner and physically interacts with the CCAN and CENP-A chromatin. Our data suggest a direct role of p97 in removing centromeric CENP-A via SUMOylated CCAN proteins thereby ensuring centromere homeostasis and potentially preventing ectopic CENP-A accumulation.