Читать книгу Cell Biology - Stephen R. Bolsover - Страница 70

Marie Maynard Daly working in her lab, c. 1960.

Source: Archives of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Photographer Ted Burrows.

Nucleosomes are the first level of DNA packaging, helping to compact the nuclear genome so that it can fit inside the cell. Nucleosomes form when negatively charged DNA binds to positively charged histone proteins. Histones are rich in the positively charged amino acids arginine and lysine. Marie Maynard Daly was a biochemist who studied histones and was able to demonstrate that there were lysine‐rich histones, in addition to the classical arginine‐rich histones that had previously been described in the literature. In 1947, Marie Maynard Daly became the first African American woman to receive a PhD in chemistry in the United States.