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Micrococcal Nuclease Digestion Assays for the Analysis of Chromosome Structure in Archaea

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Prokaryotic Gene Regulation

Part of the book series: Methods in Molecular Biology ((MIMB,volume 2516))

Abstract

The digestion of chromosomes using micrococcal nuclease (MNase) enables the analysis of their fundamental structural units. For example, the digestion of eukaryotic chromatin using MNase results in laddered DNA fragments (~150 bp increment), which reflects the length of the DNA wrapped around regularly spaced nucleosomes. Here, we describe the application of MNase to examine the chromosome structure in Archaea. We used Thermococcus kodakarensis, a hyperthermophilic euryarchaeon that encodes proteins homologous to eukaryotic histones. Methods for chromosome extraction and agarose gel electrophoresis of MNase-digested DNA including small fragments (~30 bp) are also described.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Bacteriology, Osaka Dental University, Hirakata, Japan

    Hugo Maruyama

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  1. Hugo Maruyama
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Correspondence to Hugo Maruyama .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Research Group of Microbiology, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium

    Eveline Peeters

  2. Research Group of Microbiology, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium

    Indra Bervoets

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© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature

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Maruyama, H. (2022). Micrococcal Nuclease Digestion Assays for the Analysis of Chromosome Structure in Archaea. In: Peeters, E., Bervoets, I. (eds) Prokaryotic Gene Regulation. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 2516. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-2413-5_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-2413-5_2

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  • Publisher Name: Humana, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-0716-2412-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-0716-2413-5

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