On the degradation of chromatin to nucleosomes in the thymocytes of X-irradiated mice.

Some characteristics of the postirradiation degradation of chromatin in the thymuses of mice were studied. The results proved that the main wave of chromatin degradation becomes evident between 2 and 4 h postirradiation, when considerable amounts of degradation products leach from nuclei during their isolation and are solubilized by lysis of nuclei. Similarly the degradation is manifested in the increase of salt-soluble chromatin fraction as well as of the fractions released from chromatin by various solutions (EDTA, heparin, deoxycholate, alkaline buffer). Later on, within 24 h after irradiation, only little changes in the relative amounts of the degradation products take place. Evidently only a certain thymocyte population is involved. Electrophoretic analyses of DNA fragments from various fractions in native and denatured state demonstrated that chromatin was degraded into nucleosomes and their oligomers by an endonuclease activity. The DNA bears, however, no signs of intranucleosomal regular single-strand fragmentation. This fact makes improbable the participation in this process of DNase I, DNase II and Ca,Mg-dependent endonuclease. No appreciable amount of smaller DNA fragments (products of further degradation of nucleosomes) were found even at 24 h postirradiation interval. Thus the nucleosomes and their oligomers must be considered as the only "long-lived" chromatin fragments in damaged lymphoid cells.