Figure 2.

Sequential events control chromosome condensation in vivo. Early mitosis is characterized by phosphorylation of key residues in histone H3 by Haspin (left) and Aurora B (center), which coincide with the exclusion of a set of H3K4me3-specific and H3K9me3-specific reader proteins. The resulting template, which is less populated than interphase chromatin, can be readily compacted by mitotic condensins (right). The reader-containing proteins excluded from chromatin are depicted above the nucleosomes.