How does a cell fit all of its DNA into the nucleus?

Question

How does a cell fit all of its DNA into the nucleus?

A. It doesn't do anything special, because the nucleus is the largest organelle in the cell.

B. It leaves large amounts of DNA in the cytoplasm.

C. It gets rid of every other nucleotide in the DNA and stores an abbreviated version of DNA.

D. It doubles the size of the nucleus right after cell division, in order to fit it all in.

E. It wraps the DNA around proteins, and winds the strands into tight coils.

Answer 1

E. It wraps the DNA around proteins, and winds the strands into tight coils.

Nucleosomes form the fundamental repeating units of eukaryotic chromatin, which is used to pack the large eukaryotic genomes into the nucleus while still ensuring appropriate access to it (in mammalian cells approximately 2 m of linear DNA have to be packed into a nucleus of roughly 10 µm diameter). The nucleosome core particle consists of approximately 147 base pairs of DNA wrapped in 1.67 left-handed superhelical turns around a histone octamer consisting of 2 copies each of the core histones H2A, H2B, H3, and H4.