Abstract. A rabbit antiserum, specific for the histone H3.3 replacement variant, was raised with the aid of a histone H3.3-specific peptide, Immuno blot experiments demonstrated the specificity of this polyclonal antiserum. In addition, we showed on immuno blots that two mono clonal antibodies isolated from mice with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) display strong reactivity with the H3.3 histone, but not with its replication-dependent coun terparts. Our observations indicate that histone H3.3 might play a role as autoantigen in SLE. We used the his tone H3.3-specific antiserum to characterize the germ line chromatin in cytological preparations of Drosophila tes tes, because our previous studies had shown that a histone H3.3-encoding gene is strongly expressed in the germ line of Drosophila males. The antiserum reacted with some of the lampbrush loops in spermatocytes and with chromatin of the postmeiotic germ cells of males. Our data indicate that histone H3.3 is not evenly distributed throughout the chromatin of «crm cells, but is concentrated in distinct regions. Histone H3.3 disappears from the spermatid nuclei, along with the other core histones, during the late stages of spermatogenesis. In Drosophila polytene chromo somes, however, a rather uniform distribution of the his tone H3.3 was observed. The possible role of histone H3.3 is discussed.
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