Organization and cell cycle regulation of human histone genes.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to R Rickles.
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The synthesis of histone proteins in G1 and S phase HeLa S3 cells was examined by two-dimensional electrophoretic fractionation of nuclear and total cellular proteins. Newly synthesized histones were detected only in S phase cells. Histone messenger RNA sequences, as detected by hybridization with cloned human histone genes, were present in the cytoplasm of S phase but not G1 cells.
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Although it is generally agreed that histone protein synthesis is restricted to the S phase of the cell cycle--and therefore parallels DNA replication--both transcriptional and posttranscriptional levels of control have been invoked. Using blot hybridization with several cloned genomic human histone sequences representing different histone gene clusters as probes, we have assessed the steady-state level of histone RNAs in the nucleus and cytoplasm of G1 and S phase HeLa S3 cells. The representation of histone mRNA sequences of G1 compared with S phase cells was less than 1% in the cytoplasm and approximately 1% in the nucleus. These data are consistent with transcriptional control, but we cannot completely dismiss the possibility that regulation of histone gene expression is, to some extent, mediated posttranscriptionally. If histone gene transcription does occur in G1, the RNAs must either be rapidly degraded or be transcribed to a limited extent compared with S phase. An unexpected result was obtained when a blot of cytoplasmic RNA from G1 and S phase cells was hybridized with lambda HHG 41 DNA (containing H3 and H4 human genomic histone sequences). Although hybridization with histone mRNAs was observed for RNAs from S phase but not from G1 cells, hybridization with a nonhistone RNA of approximately 330 nucleotides present predominantly in G1 was also observed.
We describe the isolation and initial characterization of seven independent lambda Charon 4A recombinant phages which contain human histone genomic sequences (designated lambda HHG). Restriction maps of these clones and localization of the genes coding for histones H2A, H2B, H3, and H4 are presented. The presence of histone encoding regions in the lambda HHG clones was demonstrated by several independent criteria including hybridization with specific DNA probes, hybrid selection/in vitro translation, and hybridization of lambda HHG DNAs to reserve Southern blots containing cytoplasmic RNAs from G1-, S-, and arabinofuranosylcytosine (cytosine arabinoside)-treated S-phase cells. In addition, the lambda HHG DNAs were shown to protect in vivo labeled H4 mRNAs from S1 nuclease digestion. Based on the analysis of the lambda HHG clones, human histone genes appear to be clustered in the genome. However, gene clusters do not seem to be present in identical tandem repeats. The lambda HHG clones described in this report fall into at least three distinct types of arrangement. One of these arrangements contains two coding regions for each of the histones H3 and H4. The arrangement of histone genes in the human genome, therefore, appears to be different from that in the sea urchin and Drosophila genomes in which each of the five histone-encoding regions (H1, H2A, H2B, H3, and H4) is present only once in each tandemly repeated cluster. At least one clone, lambda HHG 41, contains, in addition to the histone genes, a region that hybridizes with a cytoplasmic RNA approximately 330 nucleotides in length. This RNA is not similar in size to known histone-encoding RNAs and is present in the cytoplasm of HeLa cells predominantly in the G1 phase of the cell cycle.
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