The Conformation of Histone H5 Isolation and Characterisation of the Globular Segment

Treatment of chicken erythrocyte histone H5 with trypsin in a high-ionic-strength medium results in very rapid initial digestion and the formation of a ‘limiting’ resistant product peptide. Under these solution conditions the H5 molecule is maximally folded by spectroscopic criteria and it is concluded that the resistant peptide, GH5, represents a globular folded region of the molecule whilst the rapidly digested parts are disordered. The peptide GH5 is shown to comprise the sequence 22–100. In support of this conclusion it is shown that whilst intact histone H5 is hydrodynamically far from being a compact globular shape, peptide GH5 is approximately spherical by hydrodynamic and scattering criteria. Further more, peptide GH5 retains all the α-helical structure of intact H5 (circular dichroism) and appears to also maintain all the tertiary structure (nuclear magnetic resonance). It follows that in solution at high ionic strength, histone H5 consists of three domains: an N-terminal disordered region 1–21, a compact globular central domain 22–100 and a long disordered C-terminal chain 101–185. Structural parallels are drawn with the three-domain structure of the histone H1 molecule.