[Localization of regions of DNA attachment to the nuclear skeleton within chicken alpha-globin genes in functionally...

Short DNA fragments remaining associated with the nuclear skeleton after nuclease treatment and high salt extraction of chicken erythroblasts and erythrocytes nuclei were used as hybridization probes in order to find the positions of DNA attachments to a nuclear skeleton inside the domain of alpha-globin genes. It is found that in erythroblasts nuclei a rather long region including coding sequences is associated with the nuclear skeleton. This region coincides with the region preferentially digested by DNAase I in chromatin. In erythrocytes nuclei, a specific attachment point is found in the region between 4500 and 300 bp upstream to pi-gene. Several attachments in this region are detected also in erythroblast nuclei, but they are not prominent in this case. The results are discussed in terms of the existence of stable (structural) and temporal (functional) attachments of DNA to the nuclear skeleton.