The chemical approaches to the study of chromatin as an example of a supramolecular biological structure

The chemical approaches to the study of the structure and certain aspects o f functioning of chromatin are reviewed. The main attention is given to che mical approaches, primarily those based on the method of 'zero length coval ent cross-linking', aimed at the investigation of the structure of histone complexes within nucleosomes and the interactions of histones and other pro teins with chromosomal DNA. The changes in the nucleosome structure during chromatin transcription are discussed. Recent data on chemical modification of DNA and several chromatin proteins using reactive oligonucleotide deriv atives are considered and analysed. Bibliography - 89 references.