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Histones in functional diversification
Author(s) -
Pusarla RamaHaritha,
Bhargava Purnima
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
the febs journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.981
H-Index - 204
eISSN - 1742-4658
pISSN - 1742-464X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1742-4658.2005.04930.x
Subject(s) - histone , nucleosome , chromatin , biology , genetics , histone code , histone modifying enzymes , histone methylation , histone h2a , computational biology , evolutionary biology , gene , gene expression , dna methylation
Recent research suggests that minor changes in the primary sequence of the conserved histones may become major determinants for the chromatin structure regulating gene expression and other DNA‐related processes. An analysis of the involvement of different core histone variants in different nuclear processes and the structure of different variant nucleosome cores shows that this may indeed be so. Histone variants may also be involved in demarcating functional regions of the chromatin. We discuss in this review why two of the four core histones show higher variation. A comparison of the status of variants in yeast with those from higher eukaryotes suggests that histone variants have evolved in synchrony with functional requirement of the cell.