Dark field electron microscopy has been used for the study of the structure of individual macromolecules with a resolution to at least the 5Å level. The use of this technique has been extended to the investigation of structure of interacting molecules, particularly the interaction between DNA and fish protamine, a class of basic nuclear proteins of molecular weight 4,000 daltons.Protamine, which is synthesized during spermatogenesis, binds to chromatin, displaces the somatic histones and wraps up the DNA to fit into the small volume of the sperm head. It has been proposed that protamine, existing as an extended polypeptide, winds around the minor groove of the DNA double helix, with protamine's positively-charged arginines lining up with the negatively-charged phosphates of DNA. However, viewing protamine as an extended protein is inconsistent with the results obtained in our laboratory.
An Experimental Investigation on Flow Field in a Dump Combustor Model.(Dept.M)
