Journal of Cell Science 113, 2897-2907 (2000) 2897 Printed in Great Britain © The Company of Biologists Limited 2000 JCS1314 Somatic linker histone H1 is present throughout mouse embryogenesis and is not replaced by variant H1° Pierre G. Adenot1,*, Evelyne Campion1, Edith Legouy1, C. David Allis2, Stefan Dimitrov3, Jean-Paul Renard1 and Eric M. Thompson1,4 1Unité de Biologie du Développement, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, F-78352 Jouy-en-Josas, France 2Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, University of Virginia Health Science Center, Charlottesville, Virginia 22908, USA 3Laboratoire de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire de la Différenciation, INSERM U 309, Institut Albert Bonniot, Domaine de la Merci, 38706 La Tronche, Cedex, France 4Sars International Center, Bergen High Technology Center, Thormøhlensgt. 55, N-5008 Bergen, Norway *Author for correspondence (e-mail:
[email protected]) Accepted 9 June; published on WWW 20 July 2000 SUMMARY A striking feature of early embryogenesis in a number of envelopes, somatic H1 was rapidly incorporated onto organisms is the use of embryonic linker histones or high maternal and paternal chromatin, and the amount of mobility group proteins in place of somatic histone H1. The somatic H1 steadily increased on embryonic chromatin transition in chromatin composition towards somatic H1 through to the 8-cell stage. Microinjection of somatic appears to be correlated with a major increase in H1 into oocytes, and nuclear transfer experiments, transcription at the activation of the zygotic genome. demonstrated that factors in the oocyte cytoplasm and the Previous studies have supported the idea that the mouse nuclear envelope, played central roles in regulating the embryo essentially follows this pattern, with the significant loading of H1 onto chromatin.