Nucleosome signalling; An evolving concept

摘要

The nucleosome core particle is the first stage of DNA packaging in virtually all eukaryotes. It both organises nuclear DNA and protects it from adventitious binding of transcription factors and the consequent deregulation of gene expression. Both properties are essential to allow the genome expansion characteristic of complex eukaryotes. The nucleosome is a flexible structure in vivo, allowing selective relaxation of its intrinsically inhibitory effects in response to external signals. Structural changes are brought about by dedicated remodelling enzymes and by posttranslational modifications of the core histones.Histone modifications occasionally alter nucleosome structure directly, but their more usual roles are to act as receptors on the nucleosome surface that are recognised by specific protein domains. The bound proteins, in turn, affect nucleosome structure and function. This strategy enormously expands the signalling capacity of the nucleosome and its ability to influence both the initiation and elongation stages of transcription. The enzymes responsible for placing and removing histone modifications, and the modification-binding proteins themselves, are ubiquitous, numerous and conserved amongst eukaryotes. Like the nucleosome, they date back to the earliest eukaryotes and may have played integral and essential roles in eukaryotic evolution. The present properties and epigenetic functions of the nucleosome reflect its evolutionary past and the selective pressures to which it has responded and can be better understood in this context. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Molecular mechanisms of histone modification function.