Fractionation, isolation and characterization of nonhistone chromosomal protein from calf thymus

1) A method is described for the separation and fractionation of nonhistone chromosomal proteins from salt-urea dissociated calf thymus chromatin. After precipitating DNA in the dissociated chromatin solution with LaCl3, the chromosomal proteins in the supernatant were fractionated by SP-Sephadex C-25 column chromatography using a combination of NaCl stepwise and linear gradient elutions. Much care was taken to prevent proteolytic degradation of the chromosomal proteins during the preparation. 2) Among the protein fractions separated by this chromatography, twenty subfractions were found to be homogeneous on SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. These purified proteins account for about 18% of the whole chromosomal protein. Eleven subfractions of these purified nonhistone proteins had ratios of acidic to basic amino acids above 1.0 and the nine remaining subfractions had ratios below 1.0, corresponding to nonhistone proteins of basic character. 3) The molecular weights of the purified nonhistone proteins ranged from 7,400 to 19,000.