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Swapping CENP-A at the centromere

Faithful genome segregation depends on the functions of the eukaryotic centromere, which is characterized by the histone variant CENP-A. Gene replacement in human cells and fission yeast has now been used to show how CENP-A biochemically encodes centromere identity, as well as reveal an unexpected role for CENP-B in centromere function.

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Figure 1: Three functional domains comprise the centromere-specific histone, CENP-A (red).

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Correspondence to Aaron F. Straight.

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French, B., Straight, A. Swapping CENP-A at the centromere. Nat Cell Biol 15, 1028–1030 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncb2833

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