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Germline-specific H1 variants: the “sexy” linker histones

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Abstract

The eukaryotic genome is packed into chromatin, a nucleoprotein complex mainly formed by the interaction of DNA with the abundant basic histone proteins. The fundamental structural and functional subunit of chromatin is the nucleosome core particle, which is composed by 146 bp of DNA wrapped around an octameric protein complex formed by two copies of each core histone H2A, H2B, H3, and H4. In addition, although not an intrinsic component of the nucleosome core particle, linker histone H1 directly interacts with it in a monomeric form. Histone H1 binds nucleosomes near the exit/entry sites of linker DNA, determines nucleosome repeat length and stabilizes higher-order organization of nucleosomes into the ∼30 nm chromatin fiber. In comparison to core histones, histone H1 is less well conserved through evolution. Furthermore, histone H1 composition in metazoans is generally complex with most species containing multiple variants that play redundant as well as specific functions. In this regard, a characteristic feature is the presence of specific H1 variants that replace somatic H1s in the germline and during early embryogenesis. In this review, we summarize our current knowledge about their structural and functional properties.

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Acknowledgments

We apologize to colleagues whose work could not be cited here due to space limitations. Work in the authors’ laboratory is supported by grants from MINECO (BFU2012-30724) and the Generalitat de Catalunya (SGR2014-204).

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All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Institute of Molecular Biology of Barcelona, CSIC, Baldiri Reixac, 4, 08028, Barcelona, Spain

      Salvador Pérez-Montero, Albert Carbonell & Fernando Azorín

    2. Institute for Research in Biomedicine, IRB Barcelona, Baldiri Reixac, 10, 08028, Barcelona, Spain

      Salvador Pérez-Montero, Albert Carbonell & Fernando Azorín

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    1. Salvador Pérez-Montero
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    2. Albert Carbonell
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    3. Fernando Azorín
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    Correspondence to Fernando Azorín.

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    Salvador Pérez-Montero and Albert Carbonell contributed equally to this work.

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    Pérez-Montero, S., Carbonell, A. & Azorín, F. Germline-specific H1 variants: the “sexy” linker histones. Chromosoma 125, 1–13 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00412-015-0517-x

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    • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00412-015-0517-x

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