A shift in erythrocyte histone H1 complement following selection in quail (Coturnix japonica)

Abstract

This work was aimed at comparing distribution of isoforms for polymorphic histone H1 variants H1.b and H1.z and variably abundant histone H1.d subtype between quail (Coturnix japonica) population selected for a high egg yolk cholesterol content and the control birds. The isoforms of histone H1.b (H1.b1, H1.b2) and histone H1.z (H1.z1, H1.z2) differed in their apparent molecular weights judging from their differential migration rates in one-and two-dimensional SDS-polyacrylamide gels. Stained histone H1.d bands and spots in one-dimensional acetic acid-urea and two-dimensional SDS-polyacrylamide gel patterns, respectively, exhibited differential intensities among quail individuals. Histone H1. .f. = 1, P < 0.01) were found to be statistically significant among the control and selected population. In general, a moderate degree of genetic divergence (F ST equal to 0.07 and 0.1 at loci H1.b and H1.z, respectively) was observed among the control and selected quail populations. Selection may directly or indirectly affect the complement of H1 histones because of their presumably differential interactions with DNA and/or DNA-associated proteins resulting in alterations in the chromatin function.

Evidence on the stability of histone H1.a polymorphic variants during selection in quail

“…In contrast to other histone H1 subtypes (Pałyga, 1998a;Kowalski et al, 2015) whose polymorphic variants were found to significantly differ in the distribution between unselected and selected individuals, the quail histone H1.a phenotypes are equally distributed in both the control and selected line, and both comply with the HardyWeinberg equilibrium. A small genetic divergence of quail lines might indicate no correlation of histone H1.a with a selected trait.…”

“…These alterations concern both decreased and increased frequency of the phenotype b1 and z2, respectively, in the line selected for low reduction in body mass, in contrast to the frequency of phenotype a0, which remained unchanged during the course of selection. Likewise, a correlation of selection with the histone H1 polymorphic variants was also found in the quail population, in which the frequencies of histone H1 genotypes (subtype H1.b and H1.z) and phenotypes (subtype H1.d) were significantly different between unselected (control) line and the line selected for a high cholesterol content in the egg yolk (Kowalski et al, 2015). Thus, selection for a quantitative trait might introduce a change in the chromatin structure evoking certain functional consequences, i.e., an altered DNA binding and modulated chromatin condensation, connected with the activity of some of the histone H1 polymorphic variants.…”

“…Their common and individual activity, related to DNA and protein interaction as well as to the regulation of gene expression, manifests differently in peculiar cellular processes (for a review, see Herghet and Schneider, 2015;Kalashnikova et al, 2016;Kowalski and Pałyga, 2016a;Parseghian, 2015). Therefore, the function of certain avian H1 subtypes (H1.b, H1.d and H1.z) displaying altered allele frequency in response to selection (Kowalski et al, 2015) might be associated with genetic and/or epigenetic regulation of egg yolk cholesterol content, in contrast to the subtype H1.a, whose phenotypic variants were detected in this work as similarly frequent, irrespective of conducted selection.…”

“…The alterations in the frequency of histone H1 alleles (Pałyga, 1998a) as well as disparate distribution of histone H1 genotypes and phenotypes (Kowalski et al, 2015) have already been reported in a response to the selection conducted with respect to different quantitative traits in the quail lines. The data reported in the current study indicate, however, that not all histone H1 polymorphic subtypes are sensitive to the selection.…”

“…Whereas histone H1.c' has not been identified to date as polymorphic, the rest of the H1 subtypes show heterogeneity due to different abundance (i.e., protein band and/or spot intensity) and localization (i.e., disparate net charge or molecular weight) in the polyacrylamide gels (Kowalski and Pałyga, 2012a). The avian histone H1 polymorphic variants are variously distributed in the breeding (Górnicka-Michalska et al, 2014;Kowalski and Pałyga, 2014), conservative (Górnicka-Michalska et al, 2014;Kowalski and Pałyga, 2014) and wildliving (Kowalski et al, 2010Kowalski, 2016b) populations, which reflects their correlation with some of the phenotypic (Pałyga et al, 2000;Kowalski and Pałyga, 2014) and physiological (Pałyga, 1998a;Kowalski et al, 2015) organismal features.…”