UMass Chan Affiliations
Department of Molecular Genetics and MicrobiologyDocument Type
Journal ArticlePublication Date
2006-10-10Keywords
Amino Acid SequenceCentromere
DNA, Fungal
Evolution, Molecular
Fungal Proteins
Genes, Fungal
Genetic Complementation Test
Histones
Likelihood Functions
Molecular Sequence Data
*Phylogeny
Protein Folding
Protein Structure, Tertiary
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Sequence Analysis, DNA
Sequence Homology, Amino Acid
Species Specificity
Life Sciences
Medicine and Health Sciences
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Centromere H3 proteins (CenH3's) are variants of histone H3 specialized for packaging centromere DNA. Unlike canonical H3, which is among the most conserved of eukaryotic proteins, CenH3's are rapidly evolving, raising questions about orthology and conservation of function across species. To gain insight on CenH3 evolution and function, a phylogenetic analysis was undertaken on CenH3 proteins drawn from a single, ancient lineage, the Fungi. Using maximum-likelihood methods, a credible phylogeny was derived for the conserved histone fold domain (HFD) of 25 fungal CenH3's. The collection consisted mostly of hemiascomycetous yeasts, but also included basidiomycetes, euascomycetes, and an archaeascomycete. The HFD phylogeny closely recapitulated known evolutionary relationships between the species, supporting CenH3 orthology. The fungal CenH3's lacked significant homology in their N termini except for those of the Saccharomyces/Kluyveromyces clade that all contained a region homologous to the essential N-terminal domain found in Saccharomyces cerevisiae Cse4. The ability of several heterologous CenH3's to function in S. cerevisiae was tested and found to correlate with evolutionary distance. Domain swapping between S. cerevisiae Cse4 and the noncomplementing Pichia angusta ortholog showed that species specificity could not be explained by the presence or absence of any recognized secondary structural element of the HFD.Source
Genetics. 2006 Nov;174(3):1481-92. Epub 2006 Oct 8. Link to article on publisher's site
DOI
10.1534/genetics.106.062794Permanent Link to this Item
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14038/42236PubMed ID
17028330Related Resources
ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1534/genetics.106.062794