Structure of a mouse histone-encoding gene cluster

In addition to a previously described histone (H)-encoding H4 gene [Meier et al., Nucleic Acids Res. 17 (1989) 795], the mouse genomic DNA clone 53 contains two H3 genes, one functional and one partially deleted H2A gene, and one H2B gene. Clone 53 overlaps for 3 kb with MH143, another previously isolated mouse H-encoding clone [Yang et al., J. Biol. Chem. 262 (1987) 17118-17125], thus defining a 32-kb region of mouse chromosome 13 with a total of seven H-encoding genes. We have determined the nucleotide sequences and transcription start points of two genes coding for the H2A.1 and H3.2 proteins.