The mammalian ortholog of the Drosophila MOF (males absent on the first) gene product is a histone H4 lysine 16-specific acetyltransferase. Recent studies have shown that depletion of human MOF (hMOF) in human cell lines leads to genomic instability, spontaneous chromosomal aberrations, cell cycle defects, altered nuclear morphology, reduced transcription of certain genes, and defective DNA damage response to ionizing radiation (IR). Here we show that MOF plays an essential role in mammals during embryogenesis and oncogenesis. Ablation of the mouse Mof gene (mMof) by gene targeting resulted in early embryonic lethality and cell death. Lethality correlated with the loss of H4 lysine 16 acetylation (H4K16ac) and could not be rescued by concomitant inactivation of ATM or p53. In comparison to primary cells or normal tissue, all immortalized human normal and tumor cell lines and primary tumors demonstrated similar or elevated hMOF and H4K16ac levels. Accordingly, MOF overexpression correlated with increased cellular proliferation, oncogenic transformation, and tumor growth. Thus, these data reveal that the acetylation of histone H4 at K16 by MOF is an epigenetic signature of cellular proliferation common to both embryogenesis and oncogenesis and that MOF is an essential factor for embryogenesis and oncogenesis.MOF belongs to the MYST family of acetyltransferases, which have been associated with acute myeloid leukemia (MOZ), transcriptional silencing in Saccharomyces cerevisiae (SAS2 and YBF2/SAS3), interactions with human immunodeficiency virus Tat in humans (TIP60), and dosage compensation in Drosophila melanogaster (MOF), in addition to their role in DNA damage repair (2,4,12,13,17,18,43,44,46). Akhtar and Becker (1) demonstrated that Drosophila MOF is a histone acetyltransferase that acetylates chromatin specifically at histone H4 lysine 16 (H4K16). Depletion of human MOF (hMOF) in human cells results in the loss of acetylation at lysine 16 of histone H4 (6, 12, 41, 45, 46), strongly arguing that the highly conserved MOF protein may be the major histone acetyltransferase, which acetylates histone H4 at K16.Acetylation at K16 of histone H4 (H4K16ac) is a prevalent and reversible posttranslational chromatin modification in eukaryotes, and recent studies have highlighted its significance. Shogren-Knaak and coworkers have found that a single histone H4K16ac modification modulates both higher-order chromatin structure and functional interactions between a nonhistone protein and the chromatin fiber (39). Shia and coworkers have demonstrated that the presence of H4K16ac and H2A.Z synergistically prevent the ectopic propagation of heterochromatin in the subtelomeric regions of yeast (36). Furthermore, it is well understood that H4K16ac disrupts higher-order chromatin structure, changes the functional interactions between chromatin-associated proteins (39), and serves as a switch for altering chromatin from a repressive to a transcriptionally active state in yeast and humans (36). Interestingly, Dou and coworkers reported...