title: dBigH1, a second histone H1 in Drosophila, and the consequences for histone fold nomenclature.
abstract: Recently, Pérez-Montero and colleagues (Developmental cell, 26: 578-590, 2013) described the occurrence of a new histone H1 variant (dBigH1) in Drosophila. The presence of unusual acidic amino acid patches at the N-terminal end of dBigH1 is in contrast to the arginine patches that exist at the N- and C-terminal domains of other histone H1-related proteins found in the sperm of some organisms. This departure from the strictly lysine-rich composition of the somatic histone H1 raises a question about the true definition of its protein members. Their minimal essential requirements appear to be the presence of a lysine- and alanine-rich, intrinsically disordered C-terminal domain, with a highly helicogenic potential upon binding to the linker DNA regions of chromatin. In metazoans, specific targeting of these regions is further achieved by a linker histone fold domain (LHFD), distinctively different from the characteristic core histone fold domain (CHFD) of the nucleosome core histones.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology; University of Victoria; Victoria, BC, Canada.
authors.forename: Rodrigo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: González-Romero
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology; University of Victoria; Victoria, BC, Canada.
authors.forename: Juan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ausio
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D002843:Chromatin / Q000378:metabolism; D029721:Drosophila Proteins / Q000145:classification* / Q000378:metabolism; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000378:metabolism*; D005260:Female; D006657:Histones / Q000737:chemistry / Q000145:classification* / Q000378:metabolism*; D008297:Male; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009865:Oocytes / Q000378:metabolism; D017510:Protein Folding; D020033:Protein Isoforms / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D011499:Protein Processing, Post-Translational; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary; D013094:Spermatozoa / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D002843:Chromatin; D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D006657:Histones; D020033:Protein Isoforms
keywords: chromatin; histone; histone-fold; linker DNA; nucleosome