Structural determinants for generating centromeric chromatin

Ben E. Black, Daniel R. Foltz, Srinivas Chakravarthy, Karolin Luger, Virgil L. Woods () and Don W. Cleveland ()
Additional contact information
Ben E. Black: University of California
Daniel R. Foltz: University of California
Srinivas Chakravarthy: Colorado State University
Karolin Luger: Colorado State University
Virgil L. Woods: University of California
Don W. Cleveland: University of California

Nature, 2004, vol. 430, issue 6999, 578-582

Abstract: Abstract Mammalian centromeres are not defined by a consensus DNA sequence. In all eukaryotes a hallmark of functional centromeres—both normal ones and those formed aberrantly at atypical loci—is the accumulation of centromere protein A (CENP-A), a histone variant that replaces H3 in centromeric nucleosomes1,2,3,4,5,6,7. Here we show using deuterium exchange/mass spectrometry coupled with hydrodynamic measures that CENP-A and histone H4 form sub-nucleosomal tetramers that are more compact and conformationally more rigid than the corresponding tetramers of histones H3 and H4. Substitution into histone H3 of the domain of CENP-A responsible for compaction is sufficient to direct it to centromeres. Thus, the centromere-targeting domain of CENP-A confers a unique structural rigidity to the nucleosomes into which it assembles, and is likely to have a role in maintaining centromere identity.

Date: 2004
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature02766 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:430:y:2004:i:6999:d:10.1038_nature02766

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature02766

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().