Skip to main content
Nucleic Acids Research logoLink to Nucleic Acids Research
. 1980 Jun 11;8(11):2475–2487. doi: 10.1093/nar/8.11.2475

Effect of DNA length on the nucleosome low salt transition.

A E Dieterich, H Eshaghpour, D M Crothers, C R Cantor
PMCID: PMC324095  PMID: 6777754

Abstract

The effect of DNA length on the low salt unfolding transition of nucleosomes has been studied by the use of fluorescently labeled histones. Nucleosomes were formed by the reconstitution of bulk DNA fragments averaging 173 and 250 base pairs in length. These nucleosomes exhibited a conformational change in a transition centered at about 7 mM ionic strength, very different from that observed for the standard 145 bp nucleosomes (1-3mM). In addition, the conformational change of the 173 and 250 bp nucleosomes involves twice as many ions as that of the 145 bp nucleosomes.

Full text

PDF
2475

Images in this article

Selected References

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

  1. Crothers D. M., Dattagupta N., Hogan M., Klevan L., Lee K. S. Transient electric dichroism studies of nucleosomal particles. Biochemistry. 1978 Oct 17;17(21):4525–4533. doi: 10.1021/bi00614a026. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Dieterich A. E., Axel R., Cantor C. R. Dynamics of nucleosome structure studied by fluorescence. Cold Spring Harb Symp Quant Biol. 1978;42(Pt 1):199–206. doi: 10.1101/sqb.1978.042.01.022. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Dieterich A. E., Axel R., Cantor C. R. Salt-induced structural changes of nucleosome core particles. J Mol Biol. 1979 Apr 25;129(4):587–602. doi: 10.1016/0022-2836(79)90470-4. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Eshaghpour H., Crothers D. M. Preparative separation of the complementary strands of DNA restriction fragments by alkaline RPC-5 chromatography. Nucleic Acids Res. 1978 Jan;5(1):13–21. doi: 10.1093/nar/5.1.13. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Felsenfeld G. Chromatin. Nature. 1978 Jan 12;271(5641):115–122. doi: 10.1038/271115a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Finch J. T., Lutter L. C., Rhodes D., Brown R. S., Rushton B., Levitt M., Klug A. Structure of nucleosome core particles of chromatin. Nature. 1977 Sep 1;269(5623):29–36. doi: 10.1038/269029a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Franke W. W., Scheer U., Trendelenburg M., Zentgraf H., Spring H. Morphology of transcriptionally active chromatin. Cold Spring Harb Symp Quant Biol. 1978;42(Pt 2):755–772. doi: 10.1101/sqb.1978.042.01.076. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Garel A., Axel R. Selective digestion of transcriptionally active ovalbumin genes from oviduct nuclei. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1976 Nov;73(11):3966–3970. doi: 10.1073/pnas.73.11.3966. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Gordon V. C., Knobler C. M., Olins D. E., Schumaker V. N. Conformational changes of the chromatin subunit. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1978 Feb;75(2):660–663. doi: 10.1073/pnas.75.2.660. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Gordon V. C., Schumaker V. N., Olins D. E., Knobler C. M., Horwitz J. The temperature and pH dependence of conformational transitions of the chromatin subunit. Nucleic Acids Res. 1979 Aug 24;6(12):3845–3858. doi: 10.1093/nar/6.12.3845. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Huang K. H., Fairclough R. H., Cantor C. R. Singlet energy transfer studies of the arrangement of proteins in the 30 S Escherichia coli ribosome. J Mol Biol. 1975 Oct 5;97(4):443–470. doi: 10.1016/s0022-2836(75)80053-2. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Klevan L., Crothers D. M. Isolation and characterization of a spacerless dinucleosome from H1-deleted chromatin. Nucleic Acids Res. 1977 Dec;4(12):4077–4089. doi: 10.1093/nar/4.12.4077. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Kornberg R. D. Structure of chromatin. Annu Rev Biochem. 1977;46:931–954. doi: 10.1146/annurev.bi.46.070177.004435. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. 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]
  15. Martinson H. G., True R. J., Burch J. B. Specific histone-histone contacts are ruptured when nucleosomes unfold at low ionic strength. Biochemistry. 1979 Mar 20;18(6):1082–1089. doi: 10.1021/bi00573a023. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Maxam A. M., Gilbert W. A new method for sequencing DNA. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1977 Feb;74(2):560–564. doi: 10.1073/pnas.74.2.560. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Olins A. L., Carlson R. D., Wright E. B., Olins D. E. Chromatin nu bodies: isolation, subfractionation and physical characterization. Nucleic Acids Res. 1976 Dec;3(12):3271–3291. doi: 10.1093/nar/3.12.3271. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. Oliver D., Sommer K. R., Panyim S., Spiker S., Chalkley R. A modified procedure for fractionating histones. Biochem J. 1972 Sep;129(2):349–353. doi: 10.1042/bj1290349. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  19. 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]
  20. Pardon J. F., Worcester D. L., Wooley J. C., Cotter R. I., Lilley D. M., Richards R. M. The structure of the chromatin core particle in solution. Nucleic Acids Res. 1977 Sep;4(9):3199–3214. doi: 10.1093/nar/4.9.3199. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  21. Record M. T., Jr, Lohman M. L., De Haseth P. Ion effects on ligand-nucleic acid interactions. J Mol Biol. 1976 Oct 25;107(2):145–158. doi: 10.1016/s0022-2836(76)80023-x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  22. Simpson R. T. Structure of the chromatosome, a chromatin particle containing 160 base pairs of DNA and all the histones. Biochemistry. 1978 Dec 12;17(25):5524–5531. doi: 10.1021/bi00618a030. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  23. Weintraub H., Groudine M. Chromosomal subunits in active genes have an altered conformation. Science. 1976 Sep 3;193(4256):848–856. doi: 10.1126/science.948749. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  24. Wu H. M., Dattagupta N., Hogan M., Crothers D. M. Structural changes of nucleosomes in low-salt concentrations. Biochemistry. 1979 Sep 4;18(18):3960–3965. doi: 10.1021/bi00585a018. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  25. Zama M., Bryan P. N., Harrington R. E., Olins A. L., Olins D. E. Conformational states of chromatin. Cold Spring Harb Symp Quant Biol. 1978;42(Pt 1):31–41. doi: 10.1101/sqb.1978.042.01.006. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Nucleic Acids Research are provided here courtesy of Oxford University Press

RESOURCES