Sequence Periodicity in Nucleosomal DNA and Intrinsic Curvature

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Date
2009-11-01
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BioMed Central
Abstract
Most eukaryotic DNA contained in the nucleus is packaged by wrapping DNA around histone octamers. Histones are ubiquitous and bind most regions of chromosomal DNA. In order to achieve smooth wrapping of the DNA around the histone octamer, the DNA duplex should be able to deform and should possess intrinsic curvature. The deformability of DNA is a result of the non-parallelness of base pair stacks. The stacking interaction between base pairs is sequence dependent. The higher the stacking energy the more rigid the DNA helix, thus it is natural to expect that sequences that are involved in wrapping around the histone octamer should be unstacked and possess intrinsic curvature. Intrinsic curvature has been shown to be dictated by the periodic recurrence of certain dinucleotides. Several genome-wide studies directed towards mapping of nucleosome positions have revealed periodicity associated with certain stretches of sequences. In the current study, these sequences have been analyzed with a view to understand their sequence-dependent structures.
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Nucleotide sequence
Citation
Nair, Murlidharan. “Sequence Periodicity in Nucleosomal DNA and Intrinsic Curvature.” BMC Structural Biology, vol. Suppl (1), no. 58, Oct. 2010, doi:10.1186/1472-6807-10-S1-S8.
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10.1186/1472-6807-10-S1-S8
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From the publisher web site: Authors publishing with BioMed Central retain the copyright to their work, licensing it under the Creative Commons Attribution License which allows articles to be re-used and re-distributed without restriction, as long as the original work is correctly cited."
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Article