Thermal fluctuations in histone during denaturation

Abstract

In this paper, we address the issue of thermal fluctuations during the thermal denaturation of linker histone H1 which is the basic ingredient of chromatin assembly. We measure the thermal fluctuations using a sensitive nanocalorimeter based thermal fluctuation measurement set up which can measure fluctuations of the order of 1 part per billion. We find that the denaturation of the linker histone is not a simple process. It is characterized by cooling jumps (energy absorbing jumps) followed by slow dynamics which is followed by heating jumps (bursts of energy release).