Short nucleosome repeats impose rotational modulations on chromatin fibre folding.

ABSTRACT: In eukaryotic cells, DNA is organized into arrays of repeated nucleosomes where the shorter nucleosome repeat length (NRL) types are associated with transcriptionally active chromatin. Here, we tested a hypothesis that systematic variations in the NRL influence nucleosome array folding into higher-order structures. For NRLs with fixed rotational settings, we observed a negative correlation between NRL and chromatin folding. Rotational variations within a range of longer NRLs (188 bp and above) typical of repressed chromatin in differentiated cells did not reveal any changes in chromatin folding. In sharp contrast, for the shorter NRL range of 165-177 bp, we observed a strong periodic dependence of chromatin folding upon the changes in linker DNA lengths, with the 172 bp repeat found in hig

SUBMITTER: Correll SJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3364735 | biostudies-literature | 2012 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature