Cation-induced polyelectrolyte-polyelectrolyte attraction in solutions of DNA and nucleosome core particles

The paper reviews our current studies on the experimentally induced cation compaction and aggregation in solutions of DNA and nucleosome core particles and the theoretical modelling of these processes using coarse-grained continuum models with explicit mobile ions and with all-atom molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Recent experimental results on DNA condensation by cationic oligopeptides and the effects of added salt are presented. The results of MD simulations modelling DNA-DNA attraction due to the presence of multivalent ions including the polyamine spermidine and fragments of histone tails, which exhibit bridging between adjacent DNA molecules, are discussed. Experimental data on NCP aggregation, using recombinantly prepared systems are summarized. Literature data and our results of studying of the NCP solutions are compared with predictions of coarse-grained MD simulations, including the important ion correlation as well as bridging mechanisms. The importance of the results to chromatin folding and aggregation is discussed. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.