Natural allelic variation of duck erythrocyte histone H1b

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

“…Acting as peculiar modifiers of chromatin organization, the histone H1 subtypes may control expression of individual genes that influence many important cellular processes, such as chromosome alignment and segregation (Takata et al 2007), mitotic progression (Green et al 2010), and DNA damage response (Kratzmeier et al 1999;Hashimoto et al 2007). Since histone H1 condensing function is mediated by a specific C-terminal domain amino acid composition (Hansen et al 2006;Lu et al 2009), the alterations in the C-terminal domain amino acid sequence (Kosterin et al 1994;Palyga et al 2000;Gornicka-Michalska et al 2006;Kowalski et al 2011a, b) seem to support functional diversity of these chromatin proteins. A specific role for the histone H1 allelic isoform might be assigned based on the cause and effect relationship between the appearance and/or disappearance of a given allele leading to the characteristic phenotypic effects (Kowalski and Palyga 2012a).…”

“…A specific role for the histone H1 allelic isoform might be assigned based on the cause and effect relationship between the appearance and/or disappearance of a given allele leading to the characteristic phenotypic effects (Kowalski and Palyga 2012a). The histone H1 allele frequencies were shown to correlate with growth dynamics (Kosterin et al 1994;Bogdanova et al 2007), accumulated temperature of vegetation period (Bogdanova et al 2005), and geographic distribution of plants (Berdnikov et al 1993;Dudnikov 2012), plumage colour in duck (Palyga et al 2000), and the effects of environmental pollution in hare (Lepus europaeus).…”

“…Both frequent and rare allelic isoforms for the avian polymorphic histone H1 subtypes were already observed in both conservative (Kowalski et al 1998;Palyga et al 2000;Kowalski and Palyga 2014) and breeding populations (Palyga et al 1993;Palyga 1998b;Kowalski and Palyga 2014). Since allele distribution of histone H1 subtypes H1.a, H1.b, and H1.z in quail variety Pharaoh was found to fluctuate in the course of divergent selection for amount of weight loss after transient starvation (Palyga 1998b), in this work we sought to examine likely differences in histone H1 heterogeneity between the control quail population and population selected for a high yolk cholesterol content in the egg.…”

“…Many histone H1 non-allelic subtypes may consist of allelic isoforms, thus the presence of allelic polymorphism is a distinctive feature of this histone class (Kowalski and Palyga 2012a). Since histone H1 allelic variants were shown to differ in the C-terminal domains (Palyga et al 2000;Berdnikov et al 2003;Sarg et al 2005;Gornicka-Michalska et al 2006;Bogdanova et al 2007;Villar-Garea and Imhof 2008;Kowalski et al 2011a), they could be able to interact with chromatin through the allele-specific effects as manifested by their fluctuated frequency in a given population (Palyga 1998a;Palyga et al 2000;Kowalski and Palyga 2014).…”

“…Out of eight histone H1 subtypes (H1.a, H1.a′, H1.b, H1.b′, H1.c, H1.c′, H1.d, and H1.z) identified among avian erythrocyte histone H1 (Palyga 1991), five, including H1.a in duck (Anas platyrhynchos) (Kowalski et al1998), chicken (Gallus gallus) (Gornicka-Michalska et al 2006) and quail (Coturnix japonica) (Palyga 1998a), H1.a′ in grey partridge (Perdix perdix) (Kowalski et al 2008), H1.b in quail (Palyga 1998a), duck (Palyga et al 2000) and guinea fowl (Numidea meleagris) (Kowalski et al 2011a), H1.c in pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) (Kowalski et al 2010) and guinea fowl (Kowalski et al 2011a), and H1.z in duck (Palyga et al 1993) and quail (Palyga 1998a), have been recognized to be polymorphic due to the presence of two or three electromorphs differently migrating in the polyacrylamide gels as a result of variation in their net charges and/or apparent molecular weights. Both frequent and rare allelic isoforms for the avian polymorphic histone H1 subtypes were already observed in both conservative (Kowalski et al 1998;Palyga et al 2000;Kowalski and Palyga 2014) and breeding populations (Palyga et al 1993;Palyga 1998b;Kowalski and Palyga 2014).…”