During spermiogenesis, canonical histones are largely exchanged for protamines, and whether the rarely retained nucleosomes have any function has been unclear. Here, high-resolution genomic approaches are used to localize the nucleosomes retained in mature human sperm; they are found to be significantly enriched at developmentally important genes and to have distinctive patterns of histone modifications.
- Saher Sue Hammoud
- David A. Nix
- Bradley R. Cairns
