Abstract
After prolonged exposure of HeLa cells (ATCC: CCL2) to ethidium bromide (1μg× ml−l in the growth medium) the bulk of the mitochondrial DNA of these cells sediments with a sedimentation coefficient of 21 S. This DNA species is a linear duplex DNA molecule with the length of the circumference of the closed circular mitochondrial DNA. This linear DNA contains single‐strand nicks or gaps as shown by sedimentation after denaturation or by sedimentation through alkaline sucrose gradients. The number of fragments obtained after denaturation increased with decreasing molecular weight reaching a peak at the fragment size of 1/10 of the single‐stranded mitochondrial DNA.Most of the covalently closed phosphodiester backbones of the supercoiled mitochondrial DNA contain three sites which are sensitive to cleavage by alkali and at least one site which is sensitive to the action of RNAase.
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