The characterization of macroH2A beyond vertebrates supports an ancestral origin and conserved role for histone variants in chromatin
| Autor: | Ciro Rivera-Casas, José M. Eirín-López, Juan Ausió, Manjinder S. Cheema, Rodrigo González-Romero |
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| Rok vydání: | 2016 |
| Předmět: |
0301 basic medicine
Cancer Research Heterochromatin Lineage (evolution) Evolution Molecular Histones Mice 03 medical and health sciences Ticks Histone H1 Animals Histone code Nucleosome Epigenetics Molecular Biology Conserved Sequence Lancelets Mytilus Genetics 030102 biochemistry & molecular biology biology Chromatin Histone Code Sea Anemones 030104 developmental biology Histone Evolutionary biology biology.protein Research Paper |
| Zdroj: | Epigenetics. 11:415-425 |
| ISSN: | 1559-2308 1559-2294 |
| DOI: | 10.1080/15592294.2016.1172161 |
| Popis: | Histone variants play a critical role in chromatin structure and epigenetic regulation. These “deviant” proteins have been historically considered as the evolutionary descendants of ancestral canonical histones, helping specialize the nucleosome structure during eukaryotic evolution. Such view is now challenged by 2 major observations: first, canonical histones present extremely unique features not shared with any other genes; second, histone variants are widespread across many eukaryotic groups. The present work further supports the ancestral nature of histone variants by providing the first in vivo characterization of a functional macroH2A histone (a variant long defined as a specific refinement of vertebrate chromatin) in a non-vertebrate organism (the mussel Mytilus) revealing its recruitment into heterochromatic fractions of actively proliferating tissues. Combined with in silico analyses of genomic data, these results provide evidence for the widespread presence of macroH2A in metazoan animals, as well as in the holozoan Capsaspora, supporting an evolutionary origin for this histone variant lineage before the radiation of Filozoans (including Filasterea, Choanoflagellata and Metazoa). Overall, the results presented in this work help configure a new evolutionary scenario in which histone variants, rather than modern “deviants” of canonical histones, would constitute ancient components of eukaryotic chromatin. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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