Facilitates chromatin transcription (FACT) plays essential roles in chromatin remodeling during DNA transcription, replication, and repair. Our structural and biochemical studies of human FACT–histone interactions present precise views of nucleosome reorganization, conducted by the FACT-SPT16 (suppressor of Ty 16) Mid domain and its adjacent acidic AID segment. AID accesses the H2B N-terminal basic region exposed by partial unwrapping of the nucleosomal DNA, thereby triggering the invasion of FACT into the nucleosome. The crystal structure of the Mid domain complexed with an H3–H4 tetramer exhibits two separate contact sites; the Mid domain forms a novel intermolecular β structure with H4. At the other site, the Mid–H2A steric collision on the H2A-docking surface of the H3–H4 tetramer within the nucleosome induces H2A–H2B displacement. This integrated mechanism results in disrupting the H3 αN helix, which is essential for retaining the nucleosomal DNA ends, and hence facilitates DNA stripping from histone.

Translocated in liposarcoma (TLS) is an important protein component of the heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein complex involved in the splicing of pre-mRNA and the export of fully processed mRNA to the cytoplasm. We examined the domain organization of human TLS by a combined approach using limited proteolysis, matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry, circular dichroism, inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy, and NMR spectroscopy. We found that the RNA recognition motif (RRM) and zinc finger-like domains exclusively form protease-resistant core structures within the isolated TLS protein fragments, while the remaining regions, including the Arg-Gly-Gly repeats, appear to be completely unstructured. Thus, TLS contains the unstructured N-terminal half followed by the RRM and zinc finger-like domains, which are connected to each other by a flexible linker. We also carried out NMR analyses to obtain more detailed insights into the individual RRM and zinc finger-like domains. The ¹¹³Cd NMR analysis of the zinc finger-like domain verified that zinc is coordinated with four cysteines in the C4 type scheme. We also investigated the interaction of each domain with an oligo-RNA containing the GGUG sequence, which appears to be critical for the TLS function in splicing. The backbone amide NMR chemical shift perturbation analyses indicated that the zinc finger domain binds GGUG-containing RNA with a dissociation constant of about 1.0 × 10^-5 m, whereas the RRM domain showed no observable interaction with this RNA. This surprising result implies that the zinc finger domain plays a more predominant role in RNA recognition than the RRM domain.