Prokaryote and virus chromatin organization by histone

Large-scale bioinformatics studies reveal a diverse and widespread distribution of histones in prokaryotes and viruses. 

Unlike eukaryotic histones, newly identified prokaryotic histones appear not to form nucleosomes, but instead bridge, bend, and wrap DNA.

Asgard archaea, the closest known relatives of eukaryotes, encode histone proteins with eukaryotic-like N-terminal tails, whose function remains unknown.

Megaviruses encode eukaryotic-like histones that form nucleosomes and compact viral DNA.

https://www.cell.com/trends/biochemical-sciences/fulltext/S0968-0004(25)00133-1

https://sciencemission.com/Histone-mediated-chromatin-organization