Journal article
Self-assembling viral histones are evolutionary intermediates between archaeal and eukaryotic nucleosomes
- Abstract:
- Nucleosomes are DNA-protein complexes composed of histone proteins that form the basis of eukaryotic chromatin. The nucleosome was a key innovation during eukaryotic evolution, but its origin from histone homologues in Archaea remains unclear. Viral histone repeats, consisting of multiple histone paralogues within a single protein, may reflect an intermediate state. Here we examine the diversity of histones encoded by Nucleocytoviricota viruses. We identified 258 histones from 168 viral metagenomes with variable domain configurations including histone singlets, doublets, triplets and quadruplets, the latter comprising the four core histones arranged in series. Viral histone repeats branch phylogenetically between Archaea and eukaryotes and display intermediate functions in Escherichia coli, self-assembling into eukaryotic-like nucleosomes that stack into archaeal-like oligomers capable of impacting genomic activity and condensing DNA. Histone linkage also facilitates nucleosome formation, promoting eukaryotic histone assembly in E. coli. These data support the hypothesis that viral histone repeats originated in stem-eukaryotes and that nucleosome evolution proceeded through histone repeat intermediates.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 19.6MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1038/s41564-024-01707-9
Authors
- Publisher:
- Springer Nature
- Journal:
- Nature Microbiology More from this journal
- Volume:
- 9
- Issue:
- 7
- Pages:
- 1713–1724
- Place of publication:
- England
- Publication date:
- 2024-05-28
- Acceptance date:
- 2024-04-19
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
2058-5276
- Pmid:
-
38806669
- Language:
-
English
- Pubs id:
-
2002354
- Local pid:
-
pubs:2002354
- Deposit date:
-
2024-06-07
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Irwin and Richards
- Copyright date:
- 2024
- Rights statement:
- © The Author(s) 2024. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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