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Molecular arrangement of DNA in bacteriophage T 4
Author(s) -
Basu Samarendra
Publication year - 1977
Publication title -
biopolymers
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.556
H-Index - 125
eISSN - 1097-0282
pISSN - 0006-3525
DOI - 10.1002/bip.1977.360161015
Subject(s) - dna , bacteriophage , chemistry , linear dichroism , dna supercoil , crystallography , orientation (vector space) , circular dichroism , microbiology and biotechnology , biophysics , biochemistry , dna replication , biology , escherichia coli , gene , geometry , mathematics
The degree of preferred orientation and the coiling of the deoxyribonucleic acid within phage T 4 was studied by two independent techniques, namely, polarization of fluorescence and uv linear dichroism. A correlation between the two kinds of data was obtained, which indicated that a significant proportion (about 30%) of total phage DNA is aligned preferentially along the long axis of phage heads. Analyses of the data suggest that all of the phage DNA cannot be in a highly supercoiled helical configuration. A few models of the DNA arrangement in T 4 have been discussed in which linear sidewise packings of DNA would be predominant and may explain the observed longitudinal orientation of intraphage DNA.