Yoshinori Matsuo
Histones are proteins that bind to DNA and form nucleosomes. There are several types of histones that differ in chromosome distribution and timing of their expression. In Drosophila, each canonical type histone is identical or highly similar in amino acid sequence to its corresponding replacement type histone; however, gene structure and codon usage differ between the two types of histones. Identification of the evolutionary changes responsible for the differences between these two histone types will lead to an understanding of the development of epigenetic regulation. Here, recent findings regarding codon usage for canonical and replacement types of histones are outlined for study of the evolution of these histone genes and their epigenetic regulation in Drosophila.
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Journal of Phylogenetics & Evolutionary Biology received 911 citations as per Google Scholar report