Abstract
Rowley and Bodmer1 reported that the centric regions of quinacrine-treated mouse chromosome preparations show less fluorescence intensity than the remainder of the chromosome. They argued that because these centric regions contain a type of DNA that is richer in AT base pairs than unique sequence DNA, they would be expected to show diminished fluorescence according to the model proposed by Caspersson et al.2, according to which localised quinacrine fluorescence was attributed to the preferential binding of quinacrine mustard to the N-7 position of guanylyl residues in DNA. Thus, one would expect a relative paucity of guanylyl residues in the DNA of the centric regions to be associated with diminished fluorescence. It has since been shown3,4 that enhanced quinacrine fluorescence is due to AT base pairs, and studies of a series of GC-containing DNA polymers indicated that GC base pairs (or G alone) actually quenched fluorescence4. These observations did not explain why the centric regions of mouse chromosomes with their relatively greater abundance of AT base repairs show diminished quinacrine fluorescence.
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References
Rowley, J. D., and Bodmer, W. F., Nature, 231, 503 (1971).
Caspersson, T., Farber, S., Foley, G. E., Kudynowski, J., Modest, E. J., Simonsson, E., Wagh, U., and Zech, L., Expl Cell Res., 49, 219 (1968).
Ellison, J. R., and Barr, H. J., Chromosoma, 36, 375 (1972).
Weisblum, B., and de Haseth, P. L., Proc. natn. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 69, 629 (1972).
Caspersson, T., and Zech, L., Hosp. Pract., 7, 51 (1972).
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WEISBLUM, B. Why Centric Regions of Quinacrine-treated Mouse Chromosomes show Diminished Fluorescence. Nature 246, 150–151 (1973). https://doi.org/10.1038/246150a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/246150a0
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