scispace - formally typeset
Open AccessJournal ArticleDOI

Structure of histone-based chromatin in Archaea

TLDR
It is established that the histone-based mechanism of DNA compaction predates the nucleosome, illuminating the origin of the nucleOSome.
Abstract
Small basic proteins present in most Archaea share a common ancestor with the eukaryotic core histones. We report the crystal structure of an archaeal histone-DNA complex. DNA wraps around an extended polymer, formed by archaeal histone homodimers, in a quasi-continuous superhelix with the same geometry as DNA in the eukaryotic nucleosome. Substitutions of a conserved glycine at the interface of adjacent protein layers destabilize archaeal chromatin, reduce growth rate, and impair transcription regulation, confirming the biological importance of the polymeric structure. Our data establish that the histone-based mechanism of DNA compaction predates the nucleosome, illuminating the origin of the nucleosome.

read more

Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI

Chromosome organization in bacteria: mechanistic insights into genome structure and function

TL;DR: The hierarchical nature of bacterial chromosome structure and how it is influenced by diverse types of nucleoid-associated proteins is discussed, including in gene expression, chromosome segregation and cell cycle regulation.
Journal ArticleDOI

Primary Role of the Nucleosome

TL;DR: The nucleosome serves not only as a general gene repressor, but also as a repressor of all transcription (genic, intragenic, and intergenic) in the regulation of transcription.
Journal ArticleDOI

Old cogs, new tricks: the evolution of gene expression in a chromatin context.

TL;DR: The extent to which transcriptional regulatory components function in the context of the evolutionarily ancient role of chromatin as a barrier to processes acting on DNA is explored and how chromatin proteins have diversified to carry out evolutionarily recent functions that accompanied the emergence of differentiation and development in multicellular eukaryotes is discussed.
Journal ArticleDOI

Histone variants at a glance.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors briefly examine new insights into histone origins and discuss variants from each of the histone families, focusing on how structural differences may alter their functions, including DNA repair, chromosome segregation and regulation of transcription initiation.
Journal ArticleDOI

Mosaic origin of the eukaryotic kinetochore

TL;DR: The origins of the kinetochore before the last eukaryotic common ancestor (LECA) are investigated using phylogenetic trees, sensitive profile-versus-profile homology detection, and structural comparisons of its protein components.
References
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI

Coot: model-building tools for molecular graphics.

TL;DR: CCP4mg is a project that aims to provide a general-purpose tool for structural biologists, providing tools for X-ray structure solution, structure comparison and analysis, and publication-quality graphics.
Journal ArticleDOI

Phaser crystallographic software

TL;DR: A description is given of Phaser-2.1: software for phasing macromolecular crystal structures by molecular replacement and single-wavelength anomalous dispersion phasing.
Journal ArticleDOI

MaxQuant enables high peptide identification rates, individualized p.p.b.-range mass accuracies and proteome-wide protein quantification.

TL;DR: MaxQuant, an integrated suite of algorithms specifically developed for high-resolution, quantitative MS data, detects peaks, isotope clusters and stable amino acid isotope–labeled (SILAC) peptide pairs as three-dimensional objects in m/z, elution time and signal intensity space and achieves mass accuracy in the p.p.b. range.
Journal ArticleDOI

MolProbity: all-atom structure validation for macromolecular crystallography

TL;DR: MolProbity structure validation will diagnose most local errors in macromolecular crystal structures and help to guide their correction.
Related Papers (5)
Trending Questions (1)
What is the structure of histones?

The paper provides the crystal structure of an archaeal histone-DNA complex, showing that DNA wraps around an extended polymer formed by archaeal histone homodimers.