On the Interaction of Resveratrol with Nucleosomes

The natural polyphenol resveratrol exhibits anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antitumor, and geroprotective properties. The wide range of resveratrol activities is due to its ability to modulate various signaling pathways in the cell and interact with different target molecules. Resveratrol is known to interact with DNA; however, the impact of this interaction on the chromatin structure has not been clarified. In this work, we have studied the effect of resveratrol on the structure of the nucleosome, which is the functional and structural unit of chromatin. Fluorescent microscopy of single nucleosomes based on Förster resonance energy transfer and analysis of changes in the electrophoretic mobility of nucleosomes in polyacrylamide gel have shown that resveratrol at a concentration of ~100 μM affects the conformation of DNA linker regions and limits the conformational dynamics of DNA near the nucleosome boundary but does not cause significant changes in the folding of nucleosomal DNA on the histone octamer. The small effect of resveratrol on the structure of the nucleosome compared to quercetin is presumably caused by the binding mode of resveratrol in the DNA minor groove.