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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


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