doi: 10.1007/BF02788626.
Superhelicity of nucleosomal DNA changes its double-helical repeat
- PMID: 6202413
- DOI: 10.1007/BF02788626
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Superhelicity of nucleosomal DNA changes its double-helical repeat
Cell Biophys.
1983 Dec.
Abstract
Winding DNA in a superhelix can be considered a process consisting of two smooth deformations: bending and twisting. The extra twist angle introduced by winding DNA into the nucleosomal superhelix is calculated by means of the Crick formula to be -0.5 degrees per base pair (bp). This is equivalent to a change of -0.15 +/- 0.015 bp in the DNA double-helical repeat. Free DNA in solution is known to have a helical repeat of 10.55 +/- 0.1 bp. On the other hand, a weighted average of various estimates of the DNA repeat in the nucleosome is 10.38 +/- 0.02. The difference happens to be perfectly accounted for by the superhelicity of the nucleosomal DNA. This implies that the latter is essentially nonconstrained .
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