ISSN:
1432-1432
Keywords:
Key words: Chromatin — Histone H10— Histone H5 — Transcription — Transfection — Sea urchin
Source:
Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
Topics:
Biology
Notes:
Abstract. The comparison of the rat H10 gene promoter sequence with that of known H10 genes showed a high evolutionary conservation of regulatory elements involved in the control of the basal transcription of the gene. This finding suggests that the regulation of H10 gene expression is also controlled by a very conserved mechanism within vertebrates. In order to confirm this hypothesis, we destroyed three major cis-acting elements in the H10 gene promoter by site-directed mutagenesis and showed that these mutations affect significantly the activity of this promoter in cell lines representative of different vertebrate classes (fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals). We concluded that H10 gene activity, which is a developmentally regulated process, has been under a great selective pressure during evolution to ensure the expression of the protein at crucial periods of vertebrate development. One of these elements, the H4 box, helps to define within vertebrate H1 genes those encoding differentiation-specific subtypes. Indeed, it is only present in the proximal promoter region of H10 and H5 encoding genes. Regarding this feature of the vertebrate differentiation-specific H1 genes, they appear closer to the invertebrate (sea urchin) H1 genes than to those encoding vertebrate replication-dependent (RD) H1. This observation suggests that histone H10 and H5 are members that diverged from the main group of histone H1 before the vertebrate histone H1 and that the regulation of vertebrate RD H1 genes has probably evolved toward a coordinate regulation with that of core histone genes.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/PL00006129
