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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2016 Jan 31.
Published in final edited form as: Trends Cell Biol. 2014 Oct 21;25(2):82–91. doi: 10.1016/j.tcb.2014.09.006

Figure 2.

Figure 2

Male genome reorganization during protamine-to-histone exchange. (A) Structural changes of male chromatin before and after fertilization. The male genome in sperm is densely packaged by protamines with a few regions retaining histones (including canonical histones and histone variants). After the protamine-to-histone exchange, protamines are replaced by maternal histones. The retained paternal histones may help determine gene expression in the early embryo. (B) During reorganization, the male genome experiences decondensation, recondensation, and re-decondensation, with protamine-to-histone exchange possibly collectively mediated by nucleoplasmin (NPM) family proteins, including NPM1, NPM2, and NPM3. Abbreviation: PTM, post-translational modification.