Biology – Quantitative Biology – Biomolecules
Scientific paper
2007-07-13
Nature Structural and Molecular Biology 13, 444-450, 2006
Biology
Quantitative Biology
Biomolecules
18 pages, 7 figures, Supplementary information available at http://www.nature.com/nsmb/journal/v13/n5/suppinfo/nsmb1087_S1.htm
Scientific paper
10.1038/nsmb1087
Magnetic tweezers are used to study the mechanical response under torsion of single nucleosome arrays reconstituted on tandem repeats of 5S positioning sequences. Regular arrays are extremely resilient and can reversibly accommodate a large amount of supercoiling without much change in length. This behavior is quantitatively described by a molecular model of the chromatin 3-D architecture. In this model, we assume the existence of a dynamic equilibrium between three conformations of the nucleosome, which are determined by the crossing status of the entry/exit DNAs (positive, null or negative). Torsional strain, in displacing that equilibrium, extensively reorganizes the fiber architecture. The model explains a number of long-standing topological questions regarding DNA in chromatin, and may provide the ground to better understand the dynamic binding of most chromatin-associated proteins.
Allemand Jean-Francois
Bancaud Aurelien
Barbi Maria
Croquette Vincent
Lavelle Christophe
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