# PHYSICAL STRUCTURE OF VIRUSES, CHROMOSOMES & CELL NUCLEI

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIF-LAWRENC BERKELEY LAB · 1987 · $260,056

## Abstract

The main objective is to study the structure of viruses, nucleoproteins and
chromosomes.  Particular emphasis on the internal organization of their
nucleic acids.  This will be attempted by using the remarkable optical
properties of both DNA and RNA in their various chemical and physical
states (charge, single or double strandedness, secondary and tertiary
geometry alteration in aggregates and in protein complexes, etc.).

The most important methods will be:

a) circular dichroism (CD) and flow oriented CD;

b) circular dichroic microspectrophotometry;

c)  electric and flow dichroism, electric and flow birefringence;

d) flourescence detected circular dichroism (FDCD); and

e)  scattered corrected CD by fluoroscat and FDCD methods.

The above techniques will give information concerning the following
properties:  a)  the interactions between the bases of the nucleic acids,
the nucleic acids and protein complexes and the proteins components with
themselves in such biological structures as viruses, chromosomes and intact
nuclei; b) the electric and hydrodynamic properties of the protein coats
and the average orientation of nucleic acids in viruses, nucleo-proteins
and chromosomes; and, c) the superorganization of nucleic acids in viruses,
nucleohistone-DNA and RNA aggregate and/or complexes, and the degree of
coiling of nucleic acids in intact nuclei and intact cells.

With the help of the above measurements and the recently developed theory
of circular intensity differential scattering (CIDS), it is hoped that
models satisfying all the measurements can be constructed, giving insight
on the organization of nucleic acids in biological structures, and that
through this research, new diagnostic techniques of an optical nature can
be developed for detecting and identifying viruses, normal and abnormal
cells in cancer cytological studies and the state of the chromosome thorugh
its life cycle in the intact nuclei.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 3124412
- **Project number:** 5R01AI008427-19
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIF-LAWRENC BERKELEY LAB
- **SAM.gov UEI:** ENBLDJUN4N73
- **Principal Investigator:** MARCOS F MAESTRE
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 1987
- **Award amount:** $260,056
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 1978-01-01 → 1989-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/3124412

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 3124412, PHYSICAL STRUCTURE OF VIRUSES, CHROMOSOMES & CELL NUCLEI (5R01AI008427-19). Retrieved via MORVS 2026-10-25 from https://api.morvs.ai/grant/nih/3124412. Licensed CC0.

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