Prakash Kirti, Fournier David
Physico-Chimie Curie, Institut Curie, CNRS UMR 168, 75005 Paris, France; Oxford Nanoimaging Ltd, OX1 1JD, Oxford, UK; Micron Advanced Bioimaging Unit, Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Faculty of Biology and Center for Computational Sciences, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, 55128 Mainz, Germany.
Biosystems. 2018 Feb;164:49-59. doi: 10.1016/j.biosystems.2017.11.005. Epub 2017 Nov 20.
Histones are punctuated with small chemical modifications that alter their interaction with DNA. One attractive hypothesis stipulates that certain combinations of these histone modifications may function, alone or together, as a part of a predictive histone code to provide ground rules for chromatin folding. We consider four features that relate histone modifications to chromatin folding: charge neutralisation, molecular specificity, robustness and evolvability. Next, we present evidence for the association among different histone modifications at various levels of chromatin organisation and show how these relationships relate to function such as transcription, replication and cell division. Finally, we propose a model where the histone code can set critical checkpoints for chromatin to fold reversibly between different orders of the organisation in response to a biological stimulus.
组蛋白带有一些小的化学修饰，这些修饰改变了它们与DNA的相互作用。一个引人注目的假说是，这些组蛋白修饰的某些组合可能单独或共同发挥作用，作为预测性组蛋白密码的一部分，为染色质折叠提供基本规则。我们考虑了与组蛋白修饰和染色质折叠相关的四个特征：电荷中和、分子特异性、稳健性和可进化性。接下来，我们展示了在染色质组织的不同水平上不同组蛋白修饰之间关联的证据，并说明了这些关系如何与转录、复制和细胞分裂等功能相关。最后，我们提出了一个模型，其中组蛋白密码可以为染色质设置关键检查点，使其在生物刺激下在不同组织顺序之间可逆地折叠。
