Abstract

Soybean histones extracted with 67% glacial acetic acid, 0.4 N H2SO4, 0.25 N HCl were separated on 12.5% SDS-polyacrylamide gel by electrophoresis. The electrophoretic patterns of histones extracted with those various acids were similar, but the quantitative ratio of five classes of histones were different. Histones extracted with 0.25 N HCl or 0.4 N H2SO4 showed better resolution on polyacrylamide gel with less nonhistones basic proteins contaimination than those extracted with glacial acetic acid. Histones extracted with glacial acetic acid showed more bands in slow moving region and these nonhistone basic proteins might be ribosomal proteins. For identification of soybean histones, histones from peas and calf thymus were used as references. The electrophoretic pattern of soybean histones was very similar to that of pea and the electrophoretic mobilities of H3 and H4 from soybean coincided very well with those from peas and calf thymus. The order of migration for soybean histone on acetic acid-urea-polyacrylamide gel was H4＞H3＞H2b/H2a＞H1.