Transcription initiation factor IID-interactive histone chaperone CIA-II implicated in mammalian spermatogenesis

Histones are thought to have specific roles in mammalian spermatogenesis, because several subtypes of histones emerge that are post-translationally modified during spermatogenesis. Though regular assembly of nucleosome is guaranteed by histone chaperones, their involvement in spermatogenesis is yet to be characterized. Here we identified a histone chaperone-related factor, which we designated as CCG1-interacting factor A-II (CIA-II), through interaction with bromodomains of TAFII250/CCG1, which is the largest subunit of human transcription initiation factor IID (TFIID). We found that human CIA-II (hCIA-II) localizes in HeLa nuclei and is highly expressed in testis and other proliferating cell-containing tissues. Expression of mouse CIA-II (mCIA-II) does not occur in the germ cell-lacking testes of adult WBB6F1-W/Wv mutant mice, indicating its expression in testis to be specific to germ cells. Fractionation of testicular germ cells revealed that mCIA-II transcripts accumulate in pachytene spermatocytes but not in spermatids. In addition, the mCIA-II transcripts in testis were present as early as 4 days after birth and decreased at 56 days after birth. These findings indicate that mCIA-II expression in testis is restricted to premeiotic to meiotic stages during spermatogenesis. Also, we found that hCIA-II interacts with histone H3 in vivo and with histones H3/H4 in vitro and that it facilitates supercoiling of circular DNA when it is incubated with core histones and topoisomerase I in vitro. These data suggest that CIA-II is a histone chaperone and is implicated in the regulation of mammalian spermatogenesis.