Cochaperonins Are Histone-Binding Proteins

Cochaperonins (cpn10) assist chaperonins (cpn60) in mediating folding of polypeptide substrates in an ATP-dependent reaction. Moreover, they have been shown to be secretory products of living cells and to perform discrete biological activities without the need to interact with cpn60. Here, we have investigated the possible existence of cellular cpn10 binding sites that could mediate such activities. For this purpose, we performed binding studies with iodinated cpn10 on whole cells and on electrophoretically separated eukaryotic cell lysates. The former studies yielded negative results, whereas in the latter binding to several proteins was detected. These proteins were identified as being histones. Binding was observed to all core histones (H2A H2B, H3 and H4) and, although weaker, to the linker histone H1 as well. These results show that cpn10 are histone-binding proteins. (C) 1995 Academic Press, Inc.