Klug here responded to Crick's comments on Klug's ideas about the spatial arrangement, or packing, of DNA and various histones (proteins associated with DNA) in crystals of DNA and particularly in nucleosomes, a specific complex of DNA and histones in the cells of higher organisms which under the electron microscope appear like beads on a string of DNA. Particularly, Klug and Crick debated the dimensions of the DNA helix in nucleosomes (measured in angstrom, or one ten-millionth of a millimeter), how the DNA helix might itself be coiled in a nucleosome, and how many base pairs were in each turn. Klug acknowledged that the theories of X-ray diffraction by a helix and by coiled coils (helixes that themselves are twisted, corkscrew-like) which he used in his studies of nucleosomes "are things I learnt at your knee, so to speak."
Item is a photocopy.
Number of Image Pages:
4 (292,097 Bytes)
Date:
1977-05-31 (May 31, 1977)
Creator:
Klug, Aaron
Recipient:
Crick, Francis
Source:
Original Repository: Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine. Francis Harry Compton Crick Papers
