CENP-A chaperone Scm3HJURP contains a cysteine-rich domain required for centromere targeting and kinetochore integrity

Centromeric chromatin is crucial for supporting kinetochore assembly and chromosome segregation. To specify centromeres, the histone H3 variant CENP-A is loaded by the conserved chaperone Scm3/HJURP. The amino-terminus of Scm3/HJURP interacts with CENP-A, while the carboxyl-terminus contains a small domain that interacts with the Mis18 holocomplex, which facilitates centromere localization. Fungal Scm3 proteins contain an additional conserved cysteine-rich domain (CYS) with unknown function. In this study, we found that CYS is essential for the localization and function of fission yeast Scm3. Disrupting CYS prevents Scm3 from localizing to the centromere and results in cell lethality. Moreover, introducing point mutations in a predicted zinc-binding motif within CYS hinders Scm3 centromere targeting and kinetochore integrity, consistent with structural evidence that CYS binds zinc. We find that expressing only the Scm3 carboxyl-terminus is harmful as it localizes to centromeres and causes defective kinetochores. Remarkably, mutating the CYS zinc-binding motif in this construct eliminates the observed centromere localization and toxicity. Together, our findings establish this cysteine-rich domain with predicted zinc-binding capability as an essential feature of fungal Scm3 proteins and shed new light on the molecular mechanism for targeting Scm3 to centromeres. Overall design: Chromatin immunoprecipitation DNA-sequencing (ChIP-seq) for CENP-A chaperone Scm3, as well as a Scm3-?CYS mutants and untagged control in fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe.