Purification and characterization of histone H1 from meiotic cells of a monocotyledonous plant, Lilium longiflorum.

To identify molecules involved in regulating meiotic chromatin structure, nuclear proteins from meiocytes of Lilium longiflorum were chromatographed on hydroxylapatite and the bound and unbound proteins were examined. An abundant nuclear protein was purified from the unbound fraction and by the following criteria was identified as a histone H1 molecule. The protein is soluble in acidic (perchloric and sulfuric acid) solutions, and its amino acid composition and the sequence of its amino terminus are similar to that of known histone H1s. An antiserum was produced against the protein to facilitate subsequent studies. Immunoblotting experiments demonstrated that histone H1 immunostaining declines in the developmental interval spanning the diplotene to tetrads stages. Concommitant with this decline is the appearance of several lower molecular mass, cross-reacting proteins. Neither the identity nor roles of these proteins is known. Immunoblotting experiments also demonstrate that, while the level of the protein is relatively constant in nuclei prepared from meiotic and vegetative cells, histone H1 is apparently enriched in total cellular extracts of meiotic cells compared with vegetative cells. This difference was found to be at least 16-fold. I conclude that in meiotic cells, histone H1 accounts for more of the total cellular protein than it does in vegetative cells. The difference in its relative abundance as a percent of the total cellular protein is probably in part due to differences in the ratio of nuclear to cytoplasmic volume in the different cell types, or the purging of sporophytic proteins from the cytoplasm of the meiocytes, or both.