Epigenetics
Yawen Bai group (National Cancer Institute, NIH) and collaborators
Accurate segregation of chromosomes during cell division is
essential for the reproduction and development of all organisms.
Missegregation of chromosomes can cause cancer and other diseases. Using
GM/[email protected] beamlines, the Yawen Bai group and collaborators defined the
structure of the conserved region of the centromere protein CENP-C in complex
with the centromeric nucleosome. This structure reveals a general mechanism
of chromosome segregation and is a major advance in understanding human
inheritance beyond DNA sequence.
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Figure: Structure of the CENP-C motif
(red) in complex with the centromeric nucleosome. The CENP-C motif docks on
H2A (light orange) and H2B (salmon) and specifically interacts with the
C-terminal tail of centromere-specific histone CENP-A (light blue). Histone
H4 is light green (Image: Yawen Bai, National Cancer Institute, NIH).
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Citation: Kato H, Jiang J, Zhou BR, Rozendaal M, Feng H,
Ghirlando R, Xiao TS, Straight AF, Bai Y. A conserved mechanism for
centromeric nucleosome recognition by centromere protein CENP-C. Science.
2013 May 31; 340:1110-1113. doi: 10.1126/science.1235532.
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