Cellular information is encoded genetically in the DNA nucleotide sequence and epigenetically by the "histone code," DNA methylation, and higher-order packaging of DNA into chromatin. Cells possess intricate mechanisms to sense and repair damage to DNA and the genetic code. However, nothing is known of the mechanisms, if any, that repair and/or compensate for damage to epigenetically encoded information, predicted to result from perturbation of DNA and histone modifications or other changes in chromatin structure. Here we show that primary human cells respond to a variety of small molecules that perturb DNA and histone modifications by recruiting HP1 proteins to sites of altered pericentromeric heterochromatin. This response is essential to maintain the HP1-binding kinetochore protein hMis12 at kinetochores and to suppress catastrophic mitotic defects. Recruitment of HP1 proteins to pericentromeres depends on histone H3.3 variant deposition, mediated by the HIRA histone chaperone. These data indicate that defects in pericentromeric epigenetic heterochromatin modifications initiate a dynamic HP1-dependent response that rescues pericentromeric heterochromatin function and is essential for viable progression through mitosis.The eukaryotic genome is packaged into the cell nucleus in the form of chromatin, a composite of DNA, RNA, and protein. The basic repeating unit of chromatin structure is the core nucleosome, comprised of eight histone protein molecules and 146 bp of DNA. Nucleosomes are folded into multiple higher levels of organization, together with other proteins and RNA, to form chromatin (16). In chromatin, a complex array of histone modifications, histone variants, associated proteins, RNAs, higher-order folding conformations, and site-specific DNA methylation controls DNA accessibility and recruitment of specific regulatory molecules, thereby regulating most DNA functions, including transcription, replication, recombination, and repair. For example, histone acetylation acts to open up chromatin, thereby promoting transcription, and also recruits specific transcription activators, such as Brg1, through interactions between acetylated histones and bromodomains in the protein module (29).Information that is not directly coded by the DNA sequence but instead is encoded by DNA methylation, histone modifications, or other aspects of chromatin structure, is epigenetically determined. The histone modifications that contribute to epigenetic information have been proposed to constitute a histone code, by analogy to the genetic code (68). Cells possess elaborate mechanisms to sense and repair damage to the genetic code (19). Extending the analogy between the genetic code and the histone code, if histone and DNA modifications encode information outside of the DNA sequence, the cell is likely to have mechanisms to sense and repair, or otherwise respond to, alterations in these modifications. How cells respond to alteration of chromatin and epigenetic modifications is poorly understood.Kinetochores are large macromole...