Chromatin dynamics of unfolding and refolding controlled by the nucleosome repeat length and the linker and core histones

Chromatin is composed of genomic DNA and histones, forming a hierarchical architecture in the nucleus. The chromatin hierarchy is common among eukaryotes despite different intrinsic properties of the genome. To investigate an effect of the differences in genome organization, chromatin unfolding processes were comparatively analyzed using Schizosaccaromyces pombe, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and chicken erythrocyte. NaCl titration showed dynamic changes of the chromatin. 400-1000 mM NaCl facilitated beads with approximately 115 nm in diameter in S. pombe chromatin. A similar transition was also observed in S. cerevisiae chromatin. This process did not involve core histone dissociation from the chromatin, and the persistence length after the transition was approximately 26 nm for S. pombe and approximately 28 nm for S. cerevisiae, indicating a salt-induced unfolding to "beads-on-a-string" fibers. Reduced salt concentration recovered the original structure, suggesting that electrostatic interaction would regulate this discrete folding-unfolding process. On the other hand, the linker histone was extracted from chicken chromatin at 400 mM NaCl, and AFM observed the "beads-on-a-string" fibers around a nucleus. Unlike yeast chromatin, therefore, this unfolding was irreversible because of linker histone dissociation. These results indicate that the chromatin unfolding and refolding depend on the presence and absence of the linker histone, and the length of the linker DNA.