Genome-wide identification, evolutionary, and expression analyses of histone H3 variants in plants

Histone variants alter the nucleosome structure and play important roles in chromosome segregation, transcription, DNA repair, and sperm compaction. Histone H3 is encoded by many genes in most eukaryotic species and is the histone that contains the largest variety of posttranslational modifications. Compared with the metazoan H3 variants, little is known about the complex evolutionary history of H3 variants proteins in plants. Here, we study the identification, evolutionary, and expression analyses of histone H3 variants from genomes in major branches in the plant tree of life. Firstly we identified all the histone three related (HTR) genes from the examined genomes, then we classified the four groups variants: centromeric H3, H3.1, H3.3 and H3-like, by phylogenetic analysis, intron information, and alignment. We further demonstrated that the H3 variants have evolved under strong purifying selection, indicating the conservation of HTR proteins. Expression analysis revealed that the HTR has a wide expression profile in maize and rice development and plays important roles in development.