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Chromatin structure depends on what's in the nucleosome's pocket

Nature Structural & Molecular Biology volume 14, pages 1056–1058 (2007)Cite this article

Two new studies point to a heretofore underappreciated mechanism by which chromatin higher-order structure can be regulated by surfaces in the nucleosome that are not associated with DNA.

The landmark X-ray crystal structure study of a single nucleosome core particle revealed a surprise: an apparent inter-particle interaction between a region of the H4 tail domain and a surface contributed by H2A and H2B from a neighboring nucleosome in the crystal lattice6. Subsequent experiments provided evidence that this interaction is important for mediating condensation of nucleosome arrays7 and that it can be regulated by specific acetylation at Lys16 in the H4 tail8. Interestingly, this portion of the H2A-H2B surface is enriched in negatively charged residues and is concave in shape, leading to speculation that interactions with this acidic pocket may be a common feature of chromatin in vivo. The acidic pocket figures prominently in both of the studies highlighted in this issue.

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Figure 1: Multiple levels of chromatin structure.

Katie Ris-Vicari

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  1. Tamara L. Caterino and Jeffrey J. Hayes are at the University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, New York 14642, USA. jeffrey_hayes@urmc.rochester.edu,

    Tamara L Caterino & Jeffrey J Hayes

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  1. Tamara L Caterino
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Caterino, T., Hayes, J. Chromatin structure depends on what's in the nucleosome's pocket. Nat Struct Mol Biol 14, 1056–1058 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nsmb1107-1056

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