Structure of a Single Chain H2A/H2B Dimer

Chromatin is the complex assembly of nucleic acids and proteins that makes up the physiological form of the eukaryotic genome. The nucleosome is the fundamental repeating unit of chromatin, composed of ~147bp of DNA wrapped around a histone octamer formed by two copies of each core histone: H2A, H2B, H3 and H4. Prior to nucleosome assembly, and during histone eviction, histones are typically assembled into soluble H2A/H2B dimers and H3/H4 dimers and tetramers. A multitude of factors interact with soluble histone dimers and tetramers, including chaperones, importins, histone modifying enzymes, and chromatin remodeling enzymes. It is still unclear how many of these proteins recognize soluble histones; therefore, there is a need for new structural tools to study non-nucleosomal histones. Here we created a single-chain, tailless Xenopus H2A/H2B dimer by directly fusing the C-terminus of H2B to the N-terminus of H2A. We show that this construct (termed scH2BH2A) is readily expressed in bacteria and can be purified under non-denaturing conditions. A 1.31[A] crystal structure of scH2BH2A shows that it adopts a conformation nearly identical to nucleosomal H2A/H2B. This new tool will facilitate future structural studies of a multitude of H2A/H2B-interacting proteins.