Chromosomal protein poly(ADP-ribosyl)ation in pancreatic nucleosomes

When pancreatic chromatin fragments were prepared and resolved in the presence of 80 mM NaCl, endogenous poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase activity was found to be maximal in nucleosome periodicities of four to five units and did not respond to any further increases in nucleosomal architecture. Furthermore, in nucleosome complexities spanning 1 through 14 and over unit lengths, polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis on acid-urea and acid-urea-Triton gels has shown pancreatic histone H1 to be the only actively ADP-ribosylated histone species. The extent of ADP-ribosylation of histone H1 was also demonstrated to retard the protein's mobility in acid-urea, acid-urea-Triton, and lithium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gels and to consist of at least 12 distinct ADP-ribosylated species extractable in all nucleosome complexities studied. Finally, extraction and subsequent electrophoresis of total chromosomal proteins in the presence of lithium dodecyl sulfate also evidenced heavy ADP-ribosylation at the level of nonhistone chromosomal proteins of the high mobility group comigrating in the core histone region, as well as in the topmost region of the gels where poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase was found to form a poly(ADP-ribosyl)ated aggregate.