Immunological properties of fractionated avian erythroid nuclei

Chicken reticulocyte (polychromatic primitive erythrocyte) and erythrocyte chromatin was fractionated by ultrasound shearing and salt precipitation into three fractions differing in their activities to support the in vitro RNA synthesis. The transcriptionally active fraction of chicken reticulocyte chromatin which represented only about 0.5% of the total nuclear DNA contained essentially all the chromatin-associated endogenous RNA. Approximately 2% of this endogenous reticulocyte RNA hybridized to globin cDNA probe and could be translated in vitro into polypeptides which coelectrophoresed with the in vitro translation product of isolated chicken globin mRNA or chicken globin marker. Each of the three fractions had a characteristic distribution of chromosomal proteins and endogenous RNA. Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of the chromosomal proteins showed differences in their distribution among individual fractions of the same cell type and among corresponding fractions of reticulocyte or erythrocyte chromatin. Antisera produced against dehistonized reticulocyte chromatin were specific for reticulocyte but not erythrocyte chromatin. When reacted with each of the differentially templating chromatin fractions, it was found that reticulocyte-specific antibodies were highly reactive with the template-active fraction of reticulocytes, but essentially nonreactive with any other reticulocyte fraction. This same antiserum was not significantly reactive toward any erythrocyte fraction. The antigenicity of the template-active fraction of reticulocytes was abolished after pronase or DNase II digestion, but only partially diminished after DNase I digestion.