Switch of fractal properties of DNA in chicken erythrocytes nuclei by mechanical stress.

The small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) on the chicken erythrocyte nuclei demonstrates the bifractal nature of the chromatin structural organization. Use of the contrast variation (D2O-H2O) in SANS measurements reveals the differences in the DNA and protein arrangements inside the chromatin substance. It is the DNA that serves as a framework that constitutes the bifractal behavior showing the mass fractal properties with D = 2.22 at a smaller scale and the logarithmic fractal behavior with D approximate to 3 at a larger scale. The protein spatial organization shows the mass fractal properties with D approximate to 2.34 throughout the whole nucleus. The borderline between two fractal levels can be significantly shifted toward smaller scales by centrifugation of the nuclei disposed on the dry substrate, since nuclei suffer from mechanical stress transforming them to a disklike shape. The height of this disk measured by atomic force microscopy (AFM) coincides closely with the fractal borderline, thus characterizing two types of the chromatin with the soft (at larger scale) and rigid (at smaller scale) properties. The combined SANS and AFM measurements demonstrate the stress induced switch of the DNA fractal properties from the rigid, but loosely packed, mass fractal to the soft, but densely packed, logarithmic fractal.