Feb 5, 2023 07:59 PM
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00334-4
INTRO: A startling discovery in bacteria suggests that some species have a bizarre way of packaging chromosomes and regulating gene expression — using proteins that, until recently, weren’t thought to exist in bacteria at all.
In a preprint posted on bioRxiv on 26 January, researchers report the characterization of proteins called histones that, in two bacterial species, seem to bind together to coat regions of the bacterial chromosome1. This is completely different from the arrangement of histones seen in other organisms. For example, in organisms called eukaryotes, whose cells have a membrane-bounded nucleus, DNA winds around histones, rather than being encased by them.
Although histones are vital tools for maintaining chromosome structure and controlling gene activity in eukaryotes and microorganisms called archaea, for years it was widely assumed that they did not exist in bacteria.
As more bacterial genome sequences became available, the discovery of sequences characteristic of histones challenged that assumption2. “But nobody had ever characterized them or done functional studies,” says Remus Dame, a biochemist and microbiologist at Leiden University in the Netherlands. “This is definitely something new and interesting.” (MORE - details)
INTRO: A startling discovery in bacteria suggests that some species have a bizarre way of packaging chromosomes and regulating gene expression — using proteins that, until recently, weren’t thought to exist in bacteria at all.
In a preprint posted on bioRxiv on 26 January, researchers report the characterization of proteins called histones that, in two bacterial species, seem to bind together to coat regions of the bacterial chromosome1. This is completely different from the arrangement of histones seen in other organisms. For example, in organisms called eukaryotes, whose cells have a membrane-bounded nucleus, DNA winds around histones, rather than being encased by them.
Although histones are vital tools for maintaining chromosome structure and controlling gene activity in eukaryotes and microorganisms called archaea, for years it was widely assumed that they did not exist in bacteria.
As more bacterial genome sequences became available, the discovery of sequences characteristic of histones challenged that assumption2. “But nobody had ever characterized them or done functional studies,” says Remus Dame, a biochemist and microbiologist at Leiden University in the Netherlands. “This is definitely something new and interesting.” (MORE - details)