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. 2010 Sep 8;99(5):1577–1585. doi: 10.1016/j.bpj.2010.06.046

Figure 1.

Figure 1

(Color online) (Left) The atomic-resolution x-ray structure of an isolated nucleosome (2,3) used here as the basis for the fine-grained representation of the system. The molecular surface is shown. (Red) DNA. (Blue) Globular histone core. The histone proteins, H2A, H2B, H3, and H4, are either part of two dimers (H2A–H2B) or one tetramer (H3–H4)2. We use a previous definition (8) of the globular histone core which includes residues 13–119 of H2A, 24–122 of H2B, 27–135 of H3, and 20–102 of H4. (Green) Histone tail regions. The wrapped DNA covers almost all of the side surface of the globular histone core, with the tails primarily protruding into the solvent. (Right) The coarse-grained representation of the isolated nucleosome. The DNA is represented as a smooth concentric cylinder surrounding the globular histone core. The left image was created using the VMD software package (80) with the Tachyon renderer (81).