The chemical approaches to the study of chromatin as an example of a supramolecular biological structure

Abstract

The chemical approaches to the study of the structure and certain aspects of functioning of chromatin are reviewed. The main attention is given to chemical approaches, primarily those based on the method of `zero length covalent cross-linking', aimed at the investigation of the structure of histone complexes within nucleosomes and the interactions of histones and other proteins with chromosomal DNA. The changes in the nucleosome structure during chromatin transcription are discussed. Recent data on chemical modification of DNA and several chromatin proteins using reactive oligonucleotide derivatives are considered and analysed. Bibliography --- 89 references.