Unique yeast histone sequences influence octamer and nucleosome stability

Yeast nucleosomes are known to be intrinsically less stable than those from higher eukaryotes. This difference presents significant challenges for the production of yeast nucleosome core particles (NCPs) and chromatin for in vitro analyses. Using recombinant yeast, human, and chimeric histone protei...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:FEBS letters 2016-08, Vol.590 (16), p.2629-2638
Main Authors: Leung, Andrew, Cheema, Manjinder, González‐Romero, Rodrigo, Eirin‐Lopez, Jose M., Ausió, Juan, Nelson, Christopher J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amino Acids - chemistry
Amino Acids - genetics
chromatin
Chromatin - chemistry
Chromatin - genetics
Evolution, Molecular
Genome, Fungal
Histones - chemistry
Histones - genetics
Humans
nucleosome
Nucleosomes - chemistry
Nucleosomes - genetics
Recombinant Fusion Proteins - chemistry
Recombinant Fusion Proteins - genetics
Saccharomyces cerevisiae - genetics
yeast
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Yeast nucleosomes are known to be intrinsically less stable than those from higher eukaryotes. This difference presents significant challenges for the production of yeast nucleosome core particles (NCPs) and chromatin for in vitro analyses. Using recombinant yeast, human, and chimeric histone proteins, we demonstrate that three divergent amino acids in histone H3 (Q120K121K125) are responsible for the poor reconstitution of yeast histones into octamers. This QKK motif is only found in Fungi, and is located at the nucleosome dyad axis. Yeast‐to‐human changes at these positions render yeast histones amenable to well‐established octamer reconstitution and salt dialysis methods for generating nucleosomal and longer chromatin templates. By contrast, the most divergent yeast core histones, H2A and H2B, affect the biophysical properties of NCP but not their stability. An evolutionary analysis of H3 sequences shows that a gradual divergence in H3 sequences occurred in Fungi to yield QKK in budding yeast. This likely facilitates the highly euchromatic nature of yeast genomes. Our results provide an explanation for the long recognized difference in yeast nucleosome stability and they offer a simple method to generate yeast chromatin templates for in vitro studies.
ISSN:0014-5793
1873-3468
DOI:10.1002/1873-3468.12266