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Phylogenomics of the nucleosome

Nature Structural & Molecular Biology volume 10, pages 882–891 (2003)Cite this article

Abstract

Histones are best known as the architectural proteins that package the DNA of eukaryotic organisms, forming octameric nucleosome cores that the double helix wraps tightly around. Although histones have traditionally been viewed as slowly evolving scaffold proteins that lack diversification beyond their abundant tail modifications, recent studies have revealed that variant histones have evolved for diverse functions. H2A and H3 variants have diversified to assume roles in epigenetic silencing, gene expression and centromere function. Such diversification of histone variants and 'deviants' contradicts the perception of histones as monotonous members of multigene families that indiscriminately package and compact the genome. How these diverse functions have evolved from ancestral forms can be addressed by applying phylogenetic tools to increasingly abundant sequence data.

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Figure 1: Archaeal histones.
Figure 2: Archaeal to eukaryotic histones.
Figure 3: Canonical H3 histones and the H3.3 variant.
Figure 4: Centromeric H3 variants.
Figure 5: H4 histones.
Figure 6: Canonical H2A and variants.
Figure 7: H2B histones.

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  1. Basic Sciences Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, 98109, Washington, USA

    Harmit S Malik & Steven Henikoff

  2. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, 98109, Washington, USA

    Steven Henikoff

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Malik, H., Henikoff, S. Phylogenomics of the nucleosome. Nat Struct Mol Biol 10, 882–891 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nsb996

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