Initial kinetics of DNA degradation by chicken crude acid deoxyribonuclease

The ability of the crude acid DNase extracted from chicken erythrocytes to degrade native DNA into rod-like sub-units of 5.5 ±0.5×10 5 daltons, has previously been attributed to a narrow specificity of the enzyme (1). In attempting to confirm this result, we have been conducted to conclude that such a specificity does not exist. The limited DNA degradation arises from inner pH fluctuations of the reaction medium, originating in its complexity. An elimination of these fluctuations allows the degradation to proceed up to the nucleotide stage, so that limited DNA degradation must be considered as an artefact.