Distinct replication-independent and -dependent phases of histone gene expression during the Physarum cell cycle.

During the S phase of the cell cycle, histone gene expression and DNA replication are tightly coupled. In mitotically synchronous plasmodia of the myxomycete Physarum polycephalum, which has no G1 phase, histone mRNA synthesis begins in mid-G2 phase. Although histone gene transcription is activated in the absence of significant DNA synthesis, our data demonstrate that histone gene expression became tightly coupled to DNA replication once the S phase began. There was a transition from the replication-independent phase to the replication-dependent phase of histone gene expression. During the first phase, histone mRNA synthesis appears to be under direct cell cycle control; it was not coupled to DNA replication. This allowed a pool of histone mRNA to accumulate in late G2 phase, in anticipation of future demand. The second phase began at the end of mitosis, when the S phase began, and expression became homeostatically coupled to DNA replication. This homeostatic control required continuing protein synthesis, since cycloheximide uncoupled transcription from DNA synthesis. Nuclear run-on assays suggest that in P. polycephalum this coupling occurs at the level of transcription. While histone gene transcription appears to be directly switched on in mid-G2 phase and off at the end of the S phase by cell cycle regulators, only during the S phase was the level of transcription balanced with the rate of DNA synthesis.