Studies of Nucleosome Structure
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Downloaded from symposium.cshlp.org on November 30, 2015 - Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press Studies of Nucleosome Structure T.J. RICHMOND, T. RECHSTEINER, AND K. LUGER Institut fur Molekularbiologie und Biophysik, ETH-Honggerberg, CH-8093 Zurich, Switzerland The nucleosome is the universal protein/DNA ele- terminal regions in the core particle can be identified. ment repeated throughout the chromatin of eukaryotic For example, the entry point for the histone H4 amino- cells (Kornberg 1977; McGhee and Felsenfeld 1980). terminal "tail" and perhaps the tail itself can be recog- Presumably as a consequence of its fundamental role in nized. The H2A carboxy-terminal and the H3 amino- the organization of DNA in a compact unit, it has also terminal tails appear to form domains adjacent to the been found to take part in gene regulation (see, e.g., termini of the DNA superhelix. The positions of the Pederson et al. 1986; van Holde 1988; Grunstein 1990; histone protein/DNA cross-links are highly consistent Wolffe 1991; Kornberg and Lorch 1992). A major with the new electron density assignments, objective of our laboratory has been to obtain structur- To obtain greater structural detail for the nucleo- al information at high resolution for the nucleosome, its some, crystals of a nucleosome core particle containing higher-order structure, and its interactions with other DNA with a single sequence were prepared and found nuclear factors. Previously, the structure of the nucleo- to diffract to approximately 3.5 ,~ resolution (Rich- some core particle was solved by X-ray crystallography mond et al. 1988). To aid the selection of heavy-atom at 7 A_ resolution using the method of multiple iso- derivatives for structure determination and to permit morphous replacement (Richmond et al. 1984). This mutagenic analysis of particle stability and assembly, X-ray structure confirmed the size and shape of the, we have prepared and crystallized core particles that particle deduced earlier from several lines of infor- contain all the histones as recombinant proteins. The mation (Finch et al. 1979), showing that the "146"-bp higher-resolution structure should allow accurate DNA is arranged in 1.8 superhelical turns around the identification of the DNA path and location of many of histone octamer in a disk-like structure 57 A in height the side chains of the histone proteins. Finally, a along the superhelix axis and approximately 110 A, in nucleosome particle that contains 179 bp of DNA and diameter. The DNA was seen to be bent tightly at the globular domain of histone H1 is being character- several positions along its superhelical path. The shape ized and has been crystallized. and dimensions of the histone octamer within the nucleosome core particle were observed to match those Preparation of Nucleosome Core Particle Crystals measured from the octamer structure at 20 A, resolution determined by image reconstruction from electron mi- Nucleosome core particles can be obtained by lysis of crographs made from ordered aggregates under high- cell nuclei and partial digestion of the exposed chro- salt conditions (Klug et al. 1980). Even at low res- matin with micrococcal nuclease. The particles contain olution, the DNA superhelix was seen to follow a approximately 147 -+ 2 base pairs of DNA, representing helical ramp formed by the histone proteins. Regions of the natural abundance of DNA sequences (i.e., con- the histone octamer were assigned to the four pairs of taining mixed sequences), and two copies of each of the histones, H3, H4, H2A, and H2B, first in the 20 A, four core histones, H2A, H2B, H3, and H4, for a resolution structure, and then in the 7 A, X-ray struc- roughly equal mass of protein and DNA (Finch et al, ture, based on the DMS method of protein/DNA 1977). These particles of 206 kD yield crystals that cross-linking (Mirzabekov et al. 1978; Shick et al. diffract anisotropically to 3.5-7 A~ resolution and have 1980). Although many internal features of the histones resulted in a structure at 7 A, resolution (Finch et al. were seen, their assignment to individual histones could 1979; Richmond et al. 1984; Rhodes et al. 1989). be made only rather crudely, since the polypeptide To improve the X-ray diffraction from nucleosome chain could not be identified by recognition of indi- core particle crystals, the mixed sequence DNA was vidual amino acid side chains. replaced with a 146-bp DNA fragment of unique se- In light of the reinterpretation of the histone octamer quence (Richmond et al. 1988). The sequence selected crystal structure (Arents et al, 1991), it is now possible was from the 5S RNA gene of Lytechinus variegatus to assign the location of the histone proteins in the and contains the distal 25 bp of the transcription factor nucleosome core particle structure more accurately. IIIA (TFIIIA) binding site (Simpson and Stafford The location of essentially all the c~-helical regions 1983). After insertion of this fragment in multiple identified from the histone octamer crystals can be copies in a plasmid, amplification in bacteria, restric- located in the nucleosome core particle X-ray structure. tion enzyme excision, and high-performance liquid Although some rearrangement of structural elements is chromatography (HPLC) purification, core particles apparent, the entry or exit points of most of the histone were reconstituted in high yields using histone octamer Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantltatwe Btology, Volume LVIII. 91993 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press 0-87969-065-8/93 $5.00 265 Downloaded from symposium.cshlp.org on November 30, 2015 - Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press 266 RICHMOND, RECHSTEINER, AND LUGER from chicken erythrocytes. Crystals of these particles measuring along several turns of an c~ helix. Since the diffract anisotropically, beyond 3 A in the best direc- molecular (also crystallographic) twofold axis in the tion and to 3.5-4 A in the poorest direction. Compared histone octamer is along the horizontal in Figure 3c, it to the mixed sequence crystals which have one particle must also be close to horizontal in Figure 5. Given the in the crystallographic asymmetric unit (asu), these lack of perfect mirror symmetry about a horizontal line defined sequence crystals have two particles for 412 kD for the outline of the whole octamer in Figure 3, the per asu. twofold axis must be somewhat out of the plane of the More recently, totally recombinant nucleosome core projection. It cannot lie very far out, however, since it particles have been produced using histone genes from must be perpendicular to the molecular superhelix axis, Xenopus laevis (Old et al. 1982) expressed in bacteria and the view in Figure 5, as noted by the authors, is (Studier et al. 1990; K. Luger et al., in prep.). Various approximately down the superhelix axis. By including a mutant histones have been prepared, and nucleosome second transparent copy of the Figure 5 ribbon diagram core particle crystals containing them have been grown. inverted about a horizontal axis in the previous Fragments of defined sequence DNA longer than the superposition, both ribbon diagrams can be translated 146 bp have also been made and reconstituted with the as required to fit the surface projections of the "pseu- do" space-filling model shown in Figure 3c. The core histones into particles which crystallize. In addi- twofold axis position determined in this manner relat- tion, the globular domain of histone H1 (Hlg), the ing the half octamers in the ribbon diagrams falls on the outer or linker histone protein, from X. laevis has also most obvious location for the twofold axis in the surface been expressed in bacteria. Hlg has been used to representation. assemble and crystallize a nucleosome containing all The tetrakismercurimethane compound (TAMM) five histone proteins and 179 bp of DNA (T. Rech- used to make the single heavy-atom derivative for the steiner and T.J. Richmond, in prep.). hsHO structure determination is most probably bound to the histone H3 Cys-ll0 residues, the only cysteine Assignment of the Histone Proteins in the Nucleosome groups in the molecule. Using coordinates for the Core Particle at 7 TAMM multi-heavy-atom group given by Arents et al. (1991), which apparently corresponds to a single mer- The electron density map of the histone octamer cury atom because of chemical decomposition (see crystals obtained at high salt concentrations has been Burlingame et al. 1985), the site is approximately 1 recalculated (Arents et al. 1991) and found to be away from the molecular dyad axis and adjacent to the substantially different from the map originally deter- carboxyl terminus of the H3 long helix. According to mined (Burlingame et al. 1985). The distribution of the the secondary structure assignments reported in Figure polypeptide chains is substantially altered from the 2 of Arents et al. (1991), H3 Cys-110 is located in the previous interpretation. The original histone octamer carboxy-terminal turn of this long a helix. This site structure had maximal dimensions of 110 A, • 65-70 provides a common structural marker very near the A, which have been reduced to 60 A, x 65 A in the molecular symmetry axis in both the hsHO and msNCP republished structure. These dimensions compare well histone octamer structures. with those for the 20 A resolution histone octamer In the presentation of the hsHS and msNCP histone structure reported as 56 A x 70 ~, (Klug et al. 1980). octamer structures, the views given in Figure 5 of The most recent structure of the "high salt'" histone Arents et al. (1991) and in all figures of Richmond et octamer (hsHO) using data to 3.1 A resolution war- al. (1984), respectively, are views approximately down rants comparison to the histone octamer structure the molecular superhelix axis.