J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 262, Issue 15, 6943-6946, 05, 1987

Altered nucleosomes of active nucleolar chromatin contain accessible histone H3 in its hyperacetylated forms

EM Johnson, R Sterner and VG Allfrey

Chromatin of the organism Physarum polycephalum contains a class of conformationally altered nucleosomes previously localized to the transcribing regions of ribosomal genes in nucleoli. When nuclei are treated with 2-iodo[2-tritium]acetate, the histone H3 sulfhydryl group of the altered nucleosomes is derivatized while that of folded nucleosomes is not, and the labeled histones can then be identified by autoradiography of gels that separate H3 isoforms. The H3 derivatized is predominantly of tri- and tetraacetylated forms. In contrast, total free histone reacted with iodoacetate shows no preferential labeling of isoforms. Selective reaction of acetylated H3 is prevalent in both nucleolar and non-nucleolar chromatin. The results link specific patterns of H3 acetylation to changes in nucleosome conformation that occur during transcription.
CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				S. B. Hake and C. D. Allis Inaugural Article: Histone H3 variants and their potential role in indexing mammalian genomes: The "H3 barcode hypothesis" PNAS, April 25, 2006; 103(17): 6428 - 6435. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				V. J. Mutskov, V. R. Russanova, S. I. Dimitrov, and I. G. Pashev Histones Associated with Non-nucleosomal Rat Ribosomal Genes Are Acetylated while Those Bound to Nucleosome-organized Gene Copies Are Not J. Biol. Chem., May 17, 1996; 271(20): 11852 - 11857. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]