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. 1989 Nov 1;109(5):1975–1982. doi: 10.1083/jcb.109.5.1975

High-mobility group protein HMG-I localizes to G/Q- and C-bands of human and mouse chromosomes

PMCID: PMC2115878  PMID: 2808516

Abstract

Mammalian metaphase chromosomes can be identified by their characteristic banding pattern when stained with Giemsa dye after brief proteolytic digestion. The resulting G-bands are known to contain regions of DNA enriched in A/T residues and to be the principal location for the L1 (or Kpn 1) family of long interspersed repetitive sequences in human chromosomes. Here we report that antibodies raised against a highly purified and biochemically well characterized nonhistone "High-Mobility Group" protein, HMG-I, specifically localize this protein to the G-bands in mammalian metaphase chromosomes. In some preparations in which chromosomes are highly condensed, HMG-I appears to be located at the centromere and/or telomere regions of mammalian chromosomes as well. To our knowledge, this is the first well- characterized mammalian protein that localizes primarily to G-band regions of chromosomes.

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Selected References

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