Histone H1 is located in the interior of the chromatin 30-nm filament.

Abstract

The linker histone H1 binds to the nucleosome and is essential for the organization of nucleosomes into the 30-nm filament of chromatin. It has been implicated in the repression of transcription, and phosphorylation of H1 may be involved in cell-cycle-dependent chromatin condensation and decondensation. A long-standing issue concerns the location of H1 in the chromatin filament. The original solenoidal model proposes that H1 is inside the 30-nm filament, but other models, also helical, suggest a variable or more accessible location for H1. Investigations to determine the location of the linker histone based on its accessibility to antibodies or immobilized proteases under various ionic conditions have yielded conflicting results. Here we use neutron scattering in a direct structural determination to show that H1 is located in the interior of the filament.