title: Organizing the genome with H2A histone variants.
abstract: Chromatin acts as an organizer and indexer of genomic DNA and is a highly dynamic and regulated structure with properties directly related to its constituent parts. Histone variants are abundant components of chromatin that replace canonical histones in a subset of nucleosomes, thereby altering nucleosomal characteristics. The present review focuses on the H2A variant histones, summarizing current knowledge of how H2A variants can introduce chemical and functional heterogeneity into chromatin, the positions that nucleosomes containing H2A variants occupy in eukaryotic genomes, and the regulation of these localization patterns.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Life Sciences, Michael Smith Building, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PT, UK. catherine.millar@manchester.ac.uk
authors.forename: Catherine B
authors.initials: CB
authors.lastname: Millar
mesh_terms: D000255:Adenosine Triphosphate / Q000378:metabolism; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D002843:Chromatin / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D042002:Chromatin Assembly and Disassembly; D005260:Female; D014644:Genetic Variation; D016678:Genome; D015894:Genome, Human; D006657:Histones / Q000737:chemistry / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D005810:Multigene Family; D009707:Nucleosomes / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D011499:Protein Processing, Post-Translational; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D013045:Species Specificity
chemical_list: D002843:Chromatin; D006657:Histones; D009707:Nucleosomes; D000255:Adenosine Triphosphate