Alteration/deficiency in activation 3 (ADA3) is an essential component of specific histone acetyltransferase (HAT) complexes. We have previously shown that ADA3 is required for establishing global histone acetylation patterns and for normal cell cycle progression (S. Mohibi et al., J Biol Chem 287:29442-29456, 2012, http://dx.doi.org/10.1074/jbc.M112.378901). Here, we report that these functional roles of ADA3 require its acetylation. We show that ADA3 acetylation, which is dynamically regulated in a cell cycle-dependent manner, reflects a balance of coordinated actions of its associated HATs, GCN5, PCAF, and p300, and a new partner that we define, the deacetylase SIRT1. We use mass spectrometry and site-directed mutagenesis to identify major sites of ADA3 acetylated by GCN5 and p300. Acetylation-defective mutants are capable of interacting with HATs and other components of HAT complexes but are deficient in their ability to restore ADA3-dependent global or locus-specific histone acetylation marks and cell proliferation in Ada3-deleted murine embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs). Given the key importance of ADA3-containing HAT complexes in the regulation of various biological processes, including the cell cycle, our study presents a novel mechanism to regulate the function of these complexes through dynamic ADA3 acetylation.A lteration/deficiency in activation 3 (ADA3) protein is a conserved component of key chromatin-modifying complexes that contain either GCN5 or PCAF histone acetyl transferases (HATs), such as SAGA (Spt/Ada/Gcn5) in yeast, ATAC (ADA2a-containing complex), STAGA (SPT3/TAFII31/GCN5 acetyltransferase), and TFTC (TATA binding protein free-TAF containing complex) in metazoans (1-7). Within these complexes, ADA3 associates with GCN5 and ADA2 to form the HAT module. ADA3 has also been shown to associate with p300, the most well-defined HAT of mammalian systems (8, 9). ADA3 is essential for the HAT activity of p300-and GCN5-containing HAT complexes toward histones (10-14) as well as of nonhistone proteins, such as p53 and -catenin (15, 16).Although strongly implicated in the regulation of HAT activity of ADA3-containing complexes, additional functions for ADA3 have been reported. For example, we identified ADA3 as a novel human papillomavirus E6 oncoprotein-binding protein (17), and additional studies revealed that ADA3 binds to nuclear hormone receptors, such as estrogen receptor and retinoid acid receptor, and enhances their transcriptional activation function (8,(18)(19)(20)(21). Recent studies have identified an essential role of ADA3 in normal cell cycle progression and maintenance of genomic stability (5, 13, 22, 23).Whether ADA3's role in these processes is merely a passive structural one or is actively regulated is unknown. Posttranslational modification represents one potential mechanism to regulate ADA3 function, and in fact yeast ADA3 was found to be modified by acetylation (24). Consistent with this idea, we observed that human ADA3 is also acetylated in vitro by its interacting HAT p300 (13). H...