pPolyamines are naturally occurring intracellular polycations that are essential for viability and growth of eukaryotes. Dysregulation of polyamine metabolism is a hallmark of cancer and the carcinogenic process, and consequently development of polyamine analogues has emerged as a viable strategy for therapeutic intervention. Previously, we showed that the naturally occurring polyamines spermidine and spermine were quite effective at inducing the oligomerization of nucleosomal arrays iin vitro/i, suggesting that polyamines may play a key role in regulating higher order chromatin structures iin vivo/i. Here, we analyse the ability of a number of synthetic polyamine analogues to potentiate formation of higher order chromatin structures iin vitro/i. We find that a class of long-chain polyamines called oligoamines are potent inducers of nucleosomal array oligomerization iin vitro/i and that these same polyamine analogues rapidly block yeast cell growth./p
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