Abstract

In vertebrates, condensin I and condensin II cooperate to assemble rod-shaped chromosomes during mitosis. Although the mechanism of action and regulation of condensin I have been studied extensively, our corresponding knowledge of condensin II remains very limited. By introducing recombinant condensin II complexes into Xenopus egg extracts, we dissect the roles of its individual subunits in chromosome assembly. We find that one of two HEAT subunits, CAP-D3, plays a crucial role in condensin II-mediated assembly of chromosome axes whereas the other HEAT subunit, CAP-G2, has a very strong negative impact on this process. The SMC ATPase and the basic amino acid clusters of the kleisin subunit CAP-H2 are essential for this process. Deletion of the C-terminal tail of CAP-D3 increases the ability of condensin II to assemble chromosomes and further exposes a hidden function of CAP-G2 in the lateral compaction of chromosomes. Taken together, our results uncover a multilayered regulatory mechanism unique to condensin II, and provide profound implications for the evolution of condensin II.

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All data generated or analyzed during this experimental study are included in the manuscript as source data.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Makoto M Yoshida

    Chromosome Dynamics Laboratory, RIKEN, Wako, Japan
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-0618-1717
  2. Kazuhisa Kinoshita

    Chromosome Dynamics Laboratory, RIKEN, Wako, Japan
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-0882-4296
  3. Yuuki Aizawa

    Chromosome Dynamics Laboratory, RIKEN, Wako, Japan
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-5002-7557
  4. Shoji Tane

    Chromosome Dynamics Laboratory, RIKEN, Wako, Japan
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-0209-347X
  5. Daisuke Yamashita

    Chromosome Dynamics Laboratory, RIKEN, Wako, Japan
    Competing interests
    Daisuke Yamashita, is currently affiliated with Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. The author has no financial interests to declare..
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-6054-5617
  6. Keishi Shintomi

    Chromosome Dynamics Laboratory, RIKEN, Wako, Japan
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-0484-9901
  7. Tatsuya Hirano

    Chromosome Dynamics Laboratory, RIKEN, Wako, Japan
    For correspondence
    hiranot@riken.jp
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-4219-6473

Funding

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (#20K15723)

  • Makoto M Yoshida

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (#15K06959)

  • Kazuhisa Kinoshita

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (#19K06499)

  • Kazuhisa Kinoshita

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (#18H02381)

  • Keishi Shintomi

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (#19H05755)

  • Keishi Shintomi

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (#18H05276)

  • Tatsuya Hirano

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (#20H0593)

  • Tatsuya Hirano

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Animal experimentation: Female Xenopus laevis frogs (RRID: NXR 0.031, Hamamatsu Seibutsu-Kyozai) were used to lay eggs to harvest Xenopus egg extract (Hirano et al., 1997). Male X. laevis frogs (RRID: NXR 0.031, Hamamatsu Seibutsu-Kyozai) were dissected to prepare sperm nuclei from testes (Shintomi and Hirano, 2017). Frogs were used in compliance with the institutional regulations of the RIKEN Wako Campus. Mice (BALB/c × C57BL/6J)F1) for sperm nuclei (Shintomi et al., 2017) were used in compliance with protocols approved by the Animal Care and Use Committee of the University of Tokyo (for M. Ohsugi who provided mouse sperm).

Reviewing Editor

  1. Adèle L Marston, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Version history

  1. Received: March 26, 2022
  2. Preprint posted: April 5, 2022 (view preprint)
  3. Accepted: August 11, 2022
  4. Accepted Manuscript published: August 19, 2022 (version 1)
  5. Version of Record published: August 31, 2022 (version 2)

Copyright

© 2022, Yoshida et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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  1. Makoto M Yoshida
  2. Kazuhisa Kinoshita
  3. Yuuki Aizawa
  4. Shoji Tane
  5. Daisuke Yamashita
  6. Keishi Shintomi
  7. Tatsuya Hirano
(2022)
Molecular dissection of condensin II-mediated chromosome assembly using in vitro assays
eLife 11:e78984.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.78984

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