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The Bucentaur (BCNT) protein family: a long-neglected class of essential proteins required for chromatin/chromosome organization and function

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Abstract

The evolutionarily conserved Bucentaur (BCNT) protein superfamily was identified about two decades ago in bovines, but its biological role has long remained largely unknown. Sparse studies in the literature suggest that BCNT proteins perform important functions during development. Only recently, a functional analysis of the Drosophila BCNT ortholog, called YETI, has provided evidence that it is essential for proper fly development and plays roles in chromatin organization. Here, we introduce the BCNT proteins and comprehensively review data that contribute to clarify their function and mechanistic clues on how they may control development in multicellular organisms.

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Acknowledgments

The research of PD laboratory was supported by grants from Istituto Pasteur-Fondazione Cenci-Bolognetti and Fondazione Roma - Terzo Settore. The authors thank Dr. Si-Young Song, Master Kentaro Nakashima, and Dr. Yoshiko Ohno-Iwashita for the helpful discussion, and for Professor Tomoyasu Inoue for advice in preparing Fig. 7.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Biologia e Biotecnologie “Charles Darwin”, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy

    Giovanni Messina, Emanuele Celauro, Maria Teresa Atterrato & Patrizio Dimitri

  2. Istituto Pasteur Fondazione Cenci-Bolognetti, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy

    Giovanni Messina, Emanuele Celauro, Maria Teresa Atterrato & Patrizio Dimitri

  3. Dipartimento di Biologia, Università Federico II, Naples, Italy

    Ennio Giordano

  4. Faculty of Pharmacy, Iwaki Meisei University, Iwaki, Japan

    Shintaro Iwashita

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  1. Giovanni Messina
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  2. Emanuele Celauro
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  3. Maria Teresa Atterrato
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  4. Ennio Giordano
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Correspondence to Patrizio Dimitri.

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Messina, G., Celauro, E., Atterrato, M.T. et al. The Bucentaur (BCNT) protein family: a long-neglected class of essential proteins required for chromatin/chromosome organization and function. Chromosoma 124, 153–162 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00412-014-0503-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00412-014-0503-8

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