Question

Although the proteins that cause the E. coli chromosome to coil are not histones, what property would you expect them to share with histones, given their ability to bind to DNA.

Answer 1

Positively charged ions

Step-by-step explanation:

Histones are a group of proteins with a N-terminal end of an amino acid, that binds to the DNA in the nucleus helping it to condense into Chromatin. DNA wraps around a core of proteins to initially form the NUCLEOSO ME structure, which is the basic subunit of Chromatin. Each nucleosome is made up of DNA coiled around two copies (2) of proteins- H2A, H2B, H3 and H4, to form a set of eight proteins called histone octamer.

Due to the phosphate group (PO4-) embedded in the DNA molecule, they assume a negative charge. The positively charged ions of the N(C) terminal end of histones which arise from the amino acid group they contain allows it to bind tightly to negatively charged DNA i.e. the more positively and negatively charged the histone and DNA are respectively, the tighter the binding.

Due to this property, the proteins that binds to DNA in E.coli, should possess a positive charge in similarity to histones in eukaryotes.