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Detection and Localization of a Chloroplast-Encoded HU-Like Protein That Organizes Chloroplast Nucleoids

^a Department of Biological Science, Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan
^b Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Ochanomizu University, Tokyo 112-8610, Japan
^c Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Science, Saitama University, Saitama 338, Japan

¹ To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail tamaki{at}biol.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp; fax 81-3-3814-1408

Chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) is packed into discrete structures called chloroplast nucleoids (cp-nucleoids). The structure of cpDNA is thought to be important for its maintenance and regulation. In bacteria and mitochondria, histone-like proteins (such as HU and Abf2, respectively) are abundant and play important roles in DNA organization. However, a primary structural protein has yet to be found in cp-nucleoids. Here, we identified an abundant DNA binding protein from isolated cp-nucleoids of the primitive red alga Cyanidioschyzon merolae. The purified protein had sequence homology with the bacterial histone-like protein HU, and it complemented HU-lacking Escherichia coli mutants. The protein, called HC (histone-like protein of chloroplast), was encoded by a single gene (CmhupA) in the C. merolae chloroplast genome. Using immunofluorescence and immunoelectron microscopy, we demonstrated that HC was distributed uniformly throughout the entire cp-nucleoid. The protein was expressed constitutively throughout the cell and the chloroplast division cycle, and it was able to condense DNA. These results indicate that HC, a bacteria-derived histone-like protein, primarily organizes cpDNA into the nucleoid.

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