ISOLATED HISTONE FRACTIONS AND THE ALKALINE FAST GREEN REACTION

Abstract

When the alkaline fast green reaction is applied to calf thymus histone fractions f1, f2a, f2b and f3 on Millipore filter paper it is found to stain equal amounts of these fractions equally well. The dye reaction, therefore, seems to depend on the over-all charge and not exclusively on the per cent arginine plus lysine in the histone fractions. This staining reaction has been applied to histone fractions separated by acrylamide gel disc electrophoresis. Deamination of the histone fractions on both paper and acrylamide gel resulted in a reduction in the intensity of the stain. The stain that remained followed the relative amount of arginine in each fraction or band. In the gels, the f1 band was removed completely. This confirms previous interpretations of the cytochemical deamination reaction. The stain reactions have been utilized as a means of comparing electrophoretically resolved histone bands of similar mobility from crickets and mealy bugs.