Histone modification causes chromatin to reorganize and can result in modulation of SYN2

Additionally, we showed that the effect of long-term treatment with Li is likely cell-type specific. As far as brain expression, our data suggest that the effect of lithium treatment is only significant in neuronal cells and not in astrocytic or glial cells. Support from additional cell types would be important to strengthen the validity of these conclusions. Our distinct Taltirelin findings for the two SYN2 variants as well as the reported homology in sequence and function of the Miglustat family of synapsin genes opens up the question of whether the other synapsins have a neuron-specific effect, as well as a patient-specific effect. Our study points to a very interesting player in response to Li prophylaxis, but more studies are required to decipher the full pathway of Li action that leads to its stabilizing effect in a large fraction of BD patients. Unlike typical eukaryotes, dinoflagellate chromatin is permanently organized into a cholesteric liquid crystal structure, similar to structures observed in bacteria grown under stress conditions or in sperm cell nuclei. In the dinoflagellates, a combination of several factors may contribute to this structure, including a high concentration of divalent cations, a low ratio of basic protein to DNA, and amounts of DNA that can range from 1.5 pg/cell in Symbiodinium to roughly 200 pg/cell in Lingulodinium. The unique chromatin structure in dinoflagellates is presumably a derived characteristic since nuclei in Perkinsus, a genus thought to be ancestral to the dinoflagellates, have a typical eukaryotic appearance. An additional factor that is also likely to contribute to the unique structure of the dinoflagellate chromatin is the apparent lack of histones. This view is supported by biochemical evidence showing that protein extracts after gel electrophoresis lack the typical and distinctive pattern of histones as well as by microscopic observations showing that nucleosomes are not visible in DNA spreads. Instead of histones, dinoflagellates use histone-like proteins. HLPs of different dinoflagellates are similar but not identical, and have been shown to bind DNA and can be modified post-translationally.In general, DNA synthesis is coupled to histone protein synthesis for efficient assembly into nucleosomes. In plants and lower eukaryotes such as yeasts and ciliates, replication dependent histone mRNAs rely mainly on transcriptional regulation to affect histone accumulation in the S phase. The N-terminal region of the histone proteins generally contains a nuclear localization signal that binds to the nuclear import family of karyopherins with the help of Nucleosome Assembly Protein. Once inside the nucleus, the histones and DNA are assembled into nucleosomes by the help of NAP and other histone chaperone proteins. Certain residues in histone N-terminal end undergo specific post-translational modifications such as acetylation, methylation, phosphorylation, ADPribosylation, ubiquitination, sumoylation and biotinylation.