A nucleosome-like structure containing DNA and the arginine-rich histones H3 and H4 (original) (raw)

Abstract

The low-angle X-ray diffraction pattern from fibres of reconstituted H3/H4/DNA complexes is very similar to that of chromatin and has well defined maxima at 10.6, 5.4, 3.4 and 2.6 nm. Staphyloccal nuclease digestion of reconstituted H3/H4/DNA yields DNA fragments of length 49, 69, 100, 128, 193 and 255 b.p. as principal components. Comparison of the relative amounts of DNA fragments shows that the larger components (100 and 128 b.p.) increase with respect to the smaller (49 and 69 b.p.) as the histone to DNA ratio increases. A structural unit containing intergral of 65 b.p. of DNA and tetrameric (H3/H4)2 is proposed such that longer DNA fragments result from multiples of this unit. The principal nucleo-protein particle resulting from nuclease digestion contains 128/139 b.p. of DNA and has electrophoretic mobility very close to that of 'core' nucleosome. It probably represents a dimer of the basic structural unit.

2477

Images in this article

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Camerini-Otero R. D., Sollner-Webb B., Felsenfeld G. The organization of histones and DNA in chromatin: evidence for an arginine-rich histone kernel. Cell. 1976 Jul;8(3):333–347. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(76)90145-8. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Carpenter B. G., Baldwin J. P., Bradbury E. M., Ibel K. Organisation of subunits in chromatin. Nucleic Acids Res. 1976 Jul;3(7):1739–1746. doi: 10.1093/nar/3.7.1739. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Finch J. T., Klug A. Solenoidal model for superstructure in chromatin. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1976 Jun;73(6):1897–1901. doi: 10.1073/pnas.73.6.1897. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Hjelm R. P., Kneale G. G., Sauau P., Baldwin J. P., Bradbury E. M., Ibel K. Small angle neutron scattering studies of chromatin subunits in solution. Cell. 1977 Jan;10(1):139–151. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(77)90148-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Laemmli U. K. Cleavage of structural proteins during the assembly of the head of bacteriophage T4. Nature. 1970 Aug 15;227(5259):680–685. doi: 10.1038/227680a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Maniatis T., Jeffrey A., van deSande H. Chain length determination of small double- and single-stranded DNA molecules by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Biochemistry. 1975 Aug 26;14(17):3787–3794. doi: 10.1021/bi00688a010. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Moss T., Cary P. D., Crane-Robinson C., Bradbury E. M. Physical studies on the H3/H4 histone tetramer. Biochemistry. 1976 Jun 1;15(11):2261–2267. doi: 10.1021/bi00656a003. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Murray K., Bradbury E. M., Crane-Robinson C., Stephens R. M., Haydon A. J., Peacocke A. R. The dissociation of chicken erythrocyte deoxyribonuleoprotein and some properties of its partial nucleoproteins. Biochem J. 1970 Dec;120(4):859–871. doi: 10.1042/bj1200859. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Noll M. Internal structure of the chromatin subunit. Nucleic Acids Res. 1974 Nov;1(11):1573–1578. doi: 10.1093/nar/1.11.1573. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Panyim S., Bilek D., Chalkley R. An electrophoretic comparison of vertebrate histones. J Biol Chem. 1971 Jul 10;246(13):4206–4215. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Panyim S., Chalkley R. High resolution acrylamide gel electrophoresis of histones. Arch Biochem Biophys. 1969 Mar;130(1):337–346. doi: 10.1016/0003-9861(69)90042-3. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Sollner-Webb B., Camerini-Otero R. D., Felsenfeld G. Chromatin structure as probed by nucleases and proteases: evidence for the central role of histones H3 and H4. Cell. 1976 Sep;9(1):179–193. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(76)90063-5. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Streeck R. E., Hobom G. Mapping of cleavage sites for restriction endonucleases in lambdadv plasmids. Eur J Biochem. 1975 Sep 15;57(2):595–606. doi: 10.1111/j.1432-1033.1975.tb02335.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. van der Westhuyzen D. R., von Holt C. A new procedure for the isolation and fractionation of histones. FEBS Lett. 1971 May 20;14(5):333–337. doi: 10.1016/0014-5793(71)80294-6. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]