[Changes in the accessibility of chromatin antigenic determinants induced by different influences]

The accessibility of protein antigenic determinants of rat thymocyte chromatin was studied in a reaction of complement fixation, using antisera from animals immunized with chromatin or non-histone proteins and control sera containing natural antichromatin IgG. It was shown that the bulk of the antigenic determinants of intact chromatin are inaccessible for antibodies. The reactivity of chromatin in the complement fixation assay increases after ultrasonication or irradiation in vitro as well as the enzymatic cleavage of chromatin down to nucleosomes and their oligomers in dying thymocytes in vivo. This effect can mainly be due to changes of chromatin compactization.