The binding of a carcinogen to the nucleosomal and non-nucleosomal regions of the simian virus 40 chromosome in vivo.

The effect of chromatin structure on the binding of a chemical carcinogen to the genomic DNA was studied. The binding in vivo of the ultimate carcinogen, benzo-pyrene 7,8,-diol,-9,10-epoxide, to various regions of the SV40 chromosome was revealed by an immunological method. Particular attention was given to restriction fragments which include the origin of replication which is "non-nucleosomal" in a significant fraction of the chromosomes. The distribution of (+/-) trans-7,8-dihydrobenzo[alpha]pyrene-7,8-diol-9,10-epoxide (BPDE) adducts was studied in 1) SV40 DNA modified in vitro to a level of 20 adducts/molecule, 2) DNA from SV40 chromosomes modified in vivo to a level of less than 1 adduct, and 3) DNA from only those chromosomes with an open origin of replication. In other experiments, the binding of BPDE to the origin region was compared to the binding to nucleosome core particle DNA from the viral chromosome. The origin region bound 1.7-fold more BPDE than core DNA, while linker DNA is 3-fold more modified than core DNA. However, the origin region was only about 20% more modified than any other region of the chromosome. We conclude that while the conformation of the DNA in chromatin has a slight effect on its accessibility to the carcinogen, the SV40 chromosome does not contain a particular "hot spot" which is preferentially modified by BPDE.