SHANDONG SCIENCE ›› 2018, Vol. 31 ›› Issue (4): 126-132.doi: 10.3976/j.issn.1002-4026.2018.04.019

• Other Research Article • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Histidine induced DNA charge inversion and condensation

LU Jie-ping, WANG Yan-wei, YANG Guang-can*   

  1. School of Math and Electronic Information Engineering, Wenzhou University, Wenzhou 325035, China
  • Received:2018-04-03 Online:2018-08-20 Published:2018-08-20

Abstract:

Taking histidine as the research object, it was observed by dynamic light scattering that the electrophoretic mobility changes from negative to positive, and reversal of DNA charge when the histidine concentration was 1 mg/mL. At the same time, the following phenomena could be observed by atomic force microscopy: as the concentration of histidine increased, DNA molecules gradually piled up and folded up to a sphere at a histidine concentration of 1 mg/mL, which indicated that histidine could lead to DNA condensation and charge reversal. Since the isoelectric point of histidine is 7.59, it is believed that the protonation and deprotonation of the histidine side chain play a role in the regulation of its charged state. As a basic genetic material in the organism, DNA affects the growth and development of organisms, which is also closely related to abnormal activities such as cell cancer and mutation. In cells, histones are significant part of the DNA chromosomes and regulate DNA condensation in the process of DNA transcription and replication. Histidine is the main component of histones. The study of the effect of histidine on DNA condensation and related charge reversal processes is of fundamental importance for understanding the regulation of histones.

Key words: histidine, condensation, DNA, charge inversion

CLC Number: 

  • Q71