Unexpected conformational variations of the human centromeric chromatin complex

Centromeres of most eukaryotes are multi-megabase arrays of satellite DNA that assemble proteinaceous kinetochores to facilitate faithful chromosome segregation. However, the nature of the chromatin landscape at centromeres remains unclear, in part due to the difficulty of isolating intact centromeric chromatin rendered insoluble by megadalton-size kinetochore protein complexes. To address this challenge we combined classical salt fractionation with chromatin immunoprecipitation to recover human centromeric chromatin under native conditions. We found that >85% of the total centromeric chromatin is insoluble under conditions typically used for native chromatin extraction. To map both soluble and insoluble chromatin in situ, we combined CUT&RUN, a targeted nuclease method, with salt fractionation. Using this approach, we found that the strength of Centromere Protein B (CENP-B) binding and the density of CENP-B motifs corresponds to the occupancy of Constitutive Centromere-Assocated Network (CCAN) complexes bound to α-satellite arrays. We also observed unexpected structural variations of CENP-A-containing complexes on different α-satellite dimeric units within highly homogenous arrays. Our results suggest that slight α-satellite sequence differences controls the structure and occupancy of the associated centromeric chromatin complex. We used Cleavage under targets and Release using nuclease (Cut-and-Run), a chromatin profiling strategy in which antibody-targeted controlled cleavage by micrococcal nuclease releases specific protein-DNA complexes into the supernatant for paired-end DNA sequencing.