Skip Navigation

This Article
Right arrow Print PDF (664K)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Commercial Re-use Guidelines
for Open Access NAR Content
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Harrington, R. E.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Harrington, R. E.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

Nucleic Acids Research, 1977, Vol. 4, No. 10 3519-3535
© 1977

Articles

DNA chain flexibility and the structure of chromatin V.bodies

Rodney E. Harrington*,{dagger}

The University of Tennessee-Oak Ridge Graduate School of Biomedical sciences, and the Biology Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge, TN 37830, USA

Received July 15, 1977.

The persistence length of high-molecular-weight, monodisperse-bihelical DNA has been evaluated from low-shear flow birefringence and viscosity data at several temperatures in 2.0 M NaCl neutral pH buffer. At these solvent conditions, both the DNA and histone components of chromatin v-bodies have structural features similar to those in the intact nucleohistone complex at low ionic strength. The theory of Landau and Lifshitz is used to relate the experimental results to the thermodynamic functions for bending 140 nucleotide pairs of DNA into a plausible model structure: per v-body, {Delta}Gb = 43.8 ± 5.3 kcal/mole, {Delta}Hb = 45.7 ± 3.7 kcal/mole, and {Delta}Sb = 6.2 ± 12.4 entropy units. This bending free energy is comparable to or less than that estimated to be required for a kinked DNA configuration and appears to be well within the range of estimated electrostatic free energies available from DNA-histone interactions in a v-body assembly.

*Author on leave,1976-77,from the Department of Chemistry, University of Nevada Reno, Nevada 89507.

{dagger}Operated by Union Carbide Corporation for the Energy Research and Development Administration


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.