Talk abstracts

Talk on Saturday 05:00-05:15pm submitted by Huanyu Wang

Expanded binding specificity of the human histone

Huanyu Wang (MCB), Mark Parthun (MCB), Scott T. R. Walsh (MCB)

Abstract:
NASP (nuclear autoantigenic sperm protein) has been reported to be an H1-specific histone chaperone. However, NASP shares a high degree of sequence similarity with the N1/N2 family of proteins, whose members are H3/H4-specific histone chaperones. To resolve this paradox, we have performed a detailed and quantitative analysis of the binding specificity of human NASP. Our results confirm that NASP can interact with histone H1 and that this interaction occurs with high affinity. In addition, multiple in vitro and in vivo experiments, including native gel electrophoresis, traditional and affinity chromatography assays and surface plasmon resonance, all indicate that NASP also forms distinct, high specificity complexes with histones H3 and H4. The interaction between NASP and histones H3 and H4 is functional as NASP is active in in vitro chromatin assembly assays using histone substrates depleted of H1.

References:
Kleinschmidt, J. A., Dingwall, C., Maier, G., and Franke, W. W. (1986) Embo J 5, 3547-3552
Kleinschmidt, J. A., Fortkamp, E., Krohne, G., Zentgraf, H., and Franke, W. W. (1985) J Biol Chem 260, 1166-1176
Kleinschmidt, J. A., and Franke, W. W. (1982) Cell 29, 799-809
Ai, X., and Parthun, M. R. (2004) Mol Cell 14, 195-205

Keywords: Histone Chaperone