Although our understanding of centromere maintenance, marked by the histone H3 variant CenH3(CENP-A) in most eukaryotes, has progressed, the mechanism underlying the de novo formation of centromeres remains unclear. We used a synthetic system to dissect how CenH3(CENP-A) contributes to the accumulation of CENP-C and CENP-T, two key components that are necessary for the formation of functional k...

Imagine yourself as a chromatin-crawling nano-robot—Your mission: to explore the Arabidopsis thaliana centromere. If you ventured from the euchromatin, through the heterochromatin, into the centromere, you would find yourself in a strange place. Even the histones are different, with the familiar H3 replaced by the centromerespecific histone cenH3 (reviewed in De Rop et al., 2012). Mission contr...

BACKGROUND Centromere identity is determined epigenetically by deposition of CenH3, a centromere-specific histone H3 variant that dictates kinetochore assembly. The molecular basis of the contribution of CenH3 to centromere/kinetochore functions is, however, incompletely understood, as its interactions with the rest of centromere/kinetochore components remain largely uncharacterised at the mole...

The haploid inducer is a cenh3-1 null mutant in the Col-0 ecotype that is complemented by a CENH3 transgene called GFP-tailswap (cenh3-1 is embryo lethal). It has a vegetative phenotype that varies in intensity depending on growth conditions. Rosette leaves are slightly curled, and it also has shorter internodes after bolting. The mutant is mostly male sterile, but has reasonable female fertili...

Centromeric DNA sequences in multicellular eukaryotes are often highly repetitive and are not unique to a specific centromere or to centromeres at all. Thus, it is a major challenge to study the fine structure of individual plant centromeres. We used a DNA fiber-fluorescence in situ hybridization approach to study individual maize (Zea mays) centromeres using oat (Avena sativa)-maize chromosome...

Centromeres were familiar to cell biologists in the late 19th century, but for most eukaryotes the basis for centromere specification has remained enigmatic. Much attention has been focused on the cenH3 (CENP-A) histone variant, which forms the foundation of the centromere. To investigate the DNA sequence requirements for centromere specification, we applied a variety of epigenomic approaches, ...

In Drosophila melanogaster, as in many animal and plant species, centromere identity is specified epigenetically. In proliferating cells, a centromere-specific histone H3 variant (CenH3), named Cid in Drosophila and Cenp-A in humans, is a crucial component of the epigenetic centromere mark. Hence, maintenance of the amount and chromosomal location of CenH3 during mitotic proliferation is import...

CHD1 is a SNF2-related ATPase that is required for the genome-wide incorporation of variant histone H3.3 in the paternal pronucleus as well as in transcriptionally active nuclei in Drosophila embryos. The S. pombe and vertebrate orthologs of CHD1 have been implicated in the assembly of the centromeric histone H3 variant CenH3(CENP-A), which occurs in a DNA replication-independent manner. Here, ...

The "point" centromere of budding yeast is genetically defined by an ≈ 125-bp sequence. Recent fluorescence measurements of kinetochore clusters have suggested that this sequence specifies multiple centromere histone 3 (CenH3) nucleosomes. However, high-resolution mapping demonstrates that there is only one CenH3 nucleosome per centromere, providing biochemical confirmation of the point centrom...

Species of the legume genera Lathyrus and Pisum possess chromosomes that exhibit a unique structure of their centromeric regions, which is clearly apparent during metaphase by the formation of extended primary constrictions which span up to a third of the length of the chromosome. In addition, these species express two different variants of the CenH3 protein which are co-localized in multiple d...