Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Histones have been strongly conserved in archaea

Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

A friend thinks this supports the ID hypothesis about frontloading of eukaryotes:

Chromatin in eukaryotes is built around histone–DNA complexes, which act as platforms for the integration of regulatory information. Different layers of information are integrated in a combinatorial fashion, for example by exchanging core histones for variants with different properties. We show that histone variants also exist in archaea. In particular, we identify unique archaeal variants that act as capstones, preventing extension of histone–DNA complexes. Importantly, we show that some archaeal histone variants are ancient and have been maintained as distinct units for hundreds of millions of years. Our work suggests that complex combinatorial chromatin that uses histones as its building blocks exists outside eukaryotes and that the ancestor of eukaryotes might have already had complex chromatin.

Kathryn M. Stevens, Jacob B. Swadling, View ORCID ProfileAntoine Hocher, View ORCID ProfileCorinna Bang, View ORCID ProfileSimonetta Gribaldo, View ORCID ProfileRuth A. Schmitz, and Tobias Warnecke PNAS December 29, 2020 117 (52) 33384-33395; first published December 7, 2020; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2007056117 Edited by W. Ford Doolittle, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada, and approved October 28, 2020 (received for review April 14, 2020)

Hope that thinking about it doesn’t damage anyone’s career.

Comments

Leave a Reply