Abstract
A LONG-CHAIN DNA molecule must be highly folded within the nucleus of the eukaryotic cell with some regularity. Information about the structure of chromatin has come from X-ray diffraction1–4, physicochemical studies5,6, electron microscopy7–11 and nuclease digestion12–15, and suggested that chromatin from eukaryotes comprises a linear array of spherical particles in which DNA is supercoiled around a core of oligomers of histones16,17. We have used another approach to assess the structure of DNA in the nucleus of cultured mammalian cells, and have evidence suggesting that when all the histones and most of the non-histone proteins are removed from chromatin, DNA is supercoiled and folded by a few non-histone proteins tightly bound to it.
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IDE, T., NAKANE, M., ANZAI, K. et al. Supercoiled DNA folded by non-histone proteins in cultured mammalian cells. Nature 258, 445–447 (1975). https://doi.org/10.1038/258445a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/258445a0
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