The Histone Code: making genetics even more exciting

Like most good things in life; the genetic code is not quite as simple as it seems (Just in case you thought 3 billion base pairs coding for 20 different amino acids via multiple, degenerative, triplicate groups, among numerous non-coding intervening regulatory sequences was really just too “simple”).

Have you ever wondered how your skin cells and neuronal cells could have the same DNA in them, yet look and behave so differently? Have you ever imagined how nearly 6 feet of DNA could be neatly crammed into each cell nucleus better than clowns in a clown-car? Have you ever pondered why cheesecake is so delicious? We can answer (some) of those questions by understanding histones, important proteins that serve as a scaffold for DNA.

Unlike that creepy old guy who likes to parade around your gym locker room, DNA is rarely completely “naked”. And what’s more, the proteins that bind and organize the seemingly impossibly long strands that are coiled up in every cell in your body, also play an indispensable regulatory role that directly impacts the all-important process of “gene expression”. Tune in to our podcast, where we’ll be talking about the importance of that less glamorized, yet crucial counterpart to our DNA biology: the Histone Code. We’ll examine what it is, how it works, how it affects your cells, and how it can play a role in cancer.

You can listen to the podcast here:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Or you can download the podcast here

Images from the show:

Here’s an image of DNA (in green) wrapped around histone proteins (in white). You can see how tightly the DNA is wrapped around the histones. On the bottom left a histone tail is clearly visible peaking out from the DNA.

From Luger et al., Nature (1997). PDB ID: 1AOI.

Here is that same nucleosome, but seen from the side