Linker Histone H1: HMG Interactions and Protein Networks in Living Cells. HMGNs inhibit the chromatin interactions of H1.

We demonstrated that the sites of interaction of HMGN with nucleosomes partially overlap the binding sites of histone H1 in chromatin (Alfonso PG, et al. J Mol Biol. 236:189-98, 1994).

In collaboration with the Hansen Laboratory, we demonstrated that HMGN1 counteracts the repressive activity of histone H1 (Ding HF, et al. Mol Cell Biol. 17:5843-55, 1997).

We demonstrated that HMGN5 competes with H1 and alters transcription and chromatin structure (Rochman M, et al. Mol Cell. 35:642-56, 2009).

We are interested in the mechanism whereby possible H1-HMGN interactions affect the structure and function of chromatin.