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Background

Together with non-histone proteins nucleosomes assemble the eukaryotic genome into higher order structures known as chromatin. Chromatin structure is dynamic, as it is continually assembled and disassembled for factors that carry out the processes of transcription, replication, DNA repair, and recombination to gain access to the DNA. The deposition of the histones H3/H4 onto DNA to give the tetrasome intermediate and the displacement of H3/H4 from DNA are thought to be first and last steps in nucleosome assembly and disassembly, respectively. Anti-silencing function 1 (Asf1) and Chromatin Assembly Factor (CAF-1) are chaperones of histones H3/H4 that function together in the replication dependent chromatin assembly pathway.

Materials and methods

In order to investigate the molecular basis of the activity of Asf1 and CAF-1 in chromatin assembly and disassembly, we employed a variety of …