Histone tetrasome dynamics affects chromatin transcription
During various DNA-centered processes in the cell nucleus, the minimal structural units of chromatin organization, nucleosomes, are often transiently converted to hexasomes and tetrasomes missing one or both H2A/H2B histone dimers, respectively. However, the structural and functional properties of the subnucleosomes and their impact on biological processes in the nuclei are poorly understood. Here, using biochemical approaches, molecular dynamics simulations, single-particle Förster resonance energy transfer microscopy, and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, we have shown that, surprisingly, removal of both dimers from a nucleosome results in much higher mobility of both histones and DNA in the tetrasome. Accordingly, DNase I footprinting shows that DNA-histone interactions in tetrasomes are greatly compromised, resulting in formation of a much lower barrier to transcribing RNA polymerase II than nucleosomes. The data suggest that tetrasomes are remarkably dynamic structures and their formation can strongly affect various biological processes.
Authors
- Anastasiia S. Fedulova
- Vasily M. Studitsky (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7389-7993)
- Lars Nordenskiöld (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3681-209X)
- Alexey V. Feofanov (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1596-9506)
- М. П. Кирпичников (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8170-1607)
- Alexey К. Shaytan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0312-938X)
- Chinmayi Prasanna (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2219-9781)
- Grigoriy A. Armeev (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9223-7010)
- Xiangyan Shi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3784-5889)
- Anastasiia L. Sivkina (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4681-0178)
- Qinming Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9807-2533)
- Natalya Maluchenko
- Elena Kotova
Institutions
- National Research University Higher School of Economics (RU)
- Fox Chase Cancer Center (US)
- Nanyang Technological University (SG)
- Lomonosov Moscow State University (RU)
- Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry (RU)
- Shenzhen MSU-BIT University
- International University (KH)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nucleic Acids Research
- Published
- 2025-04-22
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkaf356
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Genomics and Chromatin Dynamics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.81
Funders
- Ministry of Education - Singapore
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Russian Science Foundation
- Guangdong Science and Technology Department
- National Institutes of Health