Nobuo Ui

Preparation, fractionation and properties of calf thymus histone.

1. 1. A simple and useful method for the purification and fractionation of calf thymus histone is presented. Taking advantage of solubility differences in ethanol-water mixtures, two fractions, histones I and II, were obtained. 2. 2. Physicochemical and chemical properties of both fractions were studied and compared with each other. Histone I, the main fraction, markedly differed from histone II in several properties, i.e., molecular weight, electrophoretic behaviour, chemical composition, etc. 3. 3. Although each fraction showed a good degree of homogeneity in an ultracentrifuge, it was electrophoretically not homogeneous. Histone I contained at least three components and histone II showed mainly one component with three minor components. It was, therefore, concluded that there are more than four basic proteins present in calf thymus histone.