Differential compaction of transcriptionally competent and repressed chromatin reconstituted with histone H1 subtypes

Chromatin fragments stripped of H1 histones regain the ability to form higher order structures and aggregates in 0.15 M NaCl following reconstitution with histone H1. However, transcriptionally competent chromatin fragments are resistant to chicken erythrocyte H1/H5 histone-induced 0.15 M NaCl aggregation/precipitation. In this study, we investigated the ability of stripped chromatin fragments reconstituted with one of four histone H1 subtypes (chicken erythrocyte H1, H5, trout liver H1a, H1b) at various stoichiometries to form salt precipitable higher order structures. Our results provide evidence that chicken erythrocyte histone H1 was more effective than histone H5 and trout liver histone H1b better than H1a in forming higher order structures. None of the histone H1 subtypes could render transcriptionally competent chromatin fragments insoluble in 0.15 M NaCl. These results are consistent with the ideas that the histone H1 subtypes differ in their capacities to compact chromatin fiber, and that the alterations in the structure of transcriptionally competent nucleosomes interfere with the capacity of all H1 subtypes to form higher order structures.