Hydrodynamic properties of chromatins differing in linker DNA length and in transcriptional activity have been studied by the method of sedimentation velocity. Oligonucleosomes of different chain length were isolated from chromatins of pigeon brain cortical neurones, rat thymus and sea urchin sperm characterized by nucleosome DNA repeat length of 165,198 and 248 base pairs respectively. The hydrodynamic behaviour of oligonucleosomes in the dependence on the number of nucleosomes in the chain and on the ionic strength has been analysed on the basis of cylinder model. The data obtained allows one to calculate the main structural parameters of the oligonucleosomal chain: its mass per unit length, the hydrodynamic diameter of the chain, the length of the chain per nucleosome and DNA packing ratio.
展开▼
