Chemical approaches to the study of supramolecular biological structures with chromatin as an example

Chemical approaches to the study of the chromatin structure and certain aspects of its functioning are reviewed. The main attention is given primarily to those based on the method of 'zero-length cross-linking' aimed at the investigation of the structure of histone complexes within nucleosomes and of the interactions of histones and other proteins with chromosomal DNA. The changes in the nucleosome structure during chromatin transcription are discussed. Recent data on the chemical modification of DNA and several chromatin proteins with reactive oligonucleotide derivatives are considered and analysed. The bibliography includes 89 references.