Packaging and unpackaging the sea urchin sperm genome

Two species of histones in sea urchin sperm (Sp H1 and Sp H2B) are chimeric molecules whose highly basic amino-terminal domains are dephosphorylated at the last stage of sperm cell differentiation, and rephosphorylated immediately following fertilization. The phosphorylated regions consist largely of repeating tetrapeptides with two basic residues flanking Ser-Pro residues ('SPKK' motifs) and are predicted to have beta-turn secondary structures. Alteration of the charge and structure of the SPKK sites may play a role in the unusually dense DNA packaging of the mature sperm chromatin. The motif resembles the target site of cell-cycle-associated cdc2 kinases and is found in several other proteins whose nucleic acid affinities may be altered during the cell cycle.