The structure of a virus-encoded nucleosome.
Valencia-Sanchez, M.I., Abini-Agbomson, S., Wang, M., Lee, R., Vasilyev, N., Zhang, J., De Ioannes, P., La Scola, B., Talbert, P., Henikoff, S., Nudler, E., Erives, A., Armache, K.J.(2021) Nat Struct Mol Biol 28: 413-417
- PubMed: 33927388 
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41594-021-00585-7
- Primary Citation of Related Structures:  
7LV8, 7LV9 - PubMed Abstract: 
Certain large DNA viruses, including those in the Marseilleviridae family, encode histones. Here we show that fused histone pairs Hβ-Hα and Hδ-Hγ from Marseillevirus are structurally analogous to the eukaryotic histone pairs H2B-H2A and H4-H3. These viral histones form 'forced' heterodimers, and a heterotetramer of four such heterodimers assembles DNA to form structures virtually identical to canonical eukaryotic nucleosomes.
Organizational Affiliation: 
Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, New York University Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA.