Evidence map›Paper›PMID 23133390›Full record

ArticlePLoS pathogens2012

Histone H1 plays a role in heterochromatin formation and VSG expression site silencing in Trypanosoma brucei.

Megan L Povelones, Eva Gluenz, Marcin Dembek, Keith Gull, Gloria Rudenko

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in PLoS pathogens, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 39 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
39citing papers in PubMed
5.3field-weighted citation impact, top 4% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

39 citing papers in PubMed, 60 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
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  7. Article
  8. Review
  9. Regulation of Antigenic Variation byPathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021
    Review
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  13. Article
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  15. Dynamic colocalization of 2 simultaneously activeProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2019
    Article
  16. Article
  17. Article
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  19. Article
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.

Megan L PovelonesDivision of Cell and Molecular Biology, Imperial College London, South Kensington, London, United Kingdom.
Eva Gluenz
Marcin Dembek
Keith Gull
Gloria Rudenko
Imperial College London · GBUniversity of Oxford · GB

Funding

Wellcome Trust
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The African sleeping sickness parasite Trypanosoma brucei evades the host immune system through antigenic variation of its variant surface glycoprotein (VSG) coat. Although the T. brucei genome contains ∼1500 VSGs, only one VSG is expressed at a time from one of about 15 subtelomeric VSG expression sites (ESs). For antigenic variation to work, not only must the vast VSG repertoire be kept silent in a genome that is mainly constitutively transcribed, but the frequency of VSG switching must be strictly controlled. Recently it has become clear that chromatin plays a key role in silencing inactive ESs, thereby ensuring monoallelic expression of VSG. We investigated the role of the linker histone H1 in chromatin organization and ES regulation in T. brucei. T. brucei histone H1 proteins have a different domain structure to H1 proteins in higher eukaryotes. However, we show that they play a key role in the maintenance of higher order chromatin structure in bloodstream form T. brucei as visualised by electron microscopy. In addition, depletion of histone H1 results in chromatin becoming generally more accessible to endonucleases in bloodstream but not in insect form T. brucei. The effect on chromatin following H1 knock-down in bloodstream form T. brucei is particularly evident at transcriptionally silent ES promoters, leading to 6-8 fold derepression of these promoters. T. brucei histone H1 therefore appears to be important for the maintenance of repressed chromatin in bloodstream form T. brucei. In particular H1 plays a role in downregulating silent ESs, arguing that H1-mediated chromatin functions in antigenic variation in T. brucei.

Indexed as

Antigenic VariationGene Expression RegulationHeterochromatinHistonesProtozoan ProteinsTrypanosoma cruziVariant Surface Glycoproteins, TrypanosomaHeterochromatinHistonesProtozoan ProteinsVariant Surface Glycoproteins, Trypanosoma

Identifiers

PMID23133390
PMCPMC3486875
OpenAlexW2108709147

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.