In our laboratory, the gene transfer efficiency of some lipofection reagents (lipofectine, lipofectamine, DOTAP and Dosper) and histones H3 and H4 was compared to that of DEAE-Dextran (64). The histones H3 and H4 were found to have the highest transfection efficiency of all the agents tested. In the present study we have analyzed other parameters important for gene delivery by the histones H3 and H4. We transferred the HIV-1 tat gene to Jurkat cells and measured the transactivation of HIV-1-LTR by the transactivator protein, expressed in Jurkat cells. The expression of CAT as a reporter gene hybridized to LTR was a direct measure of transactivation potential. In order to investigate whether the transfection was only due to the positive ionic character of the histones H3 and H4 we tested other histones (H1 and H2A) and polylysine in our system. Under our experimental conditions, neither polylysine, nor the histones H1 and H2A were able to promote gene transfer in Jurkat cells. The inability of these reagents to promote gene transfer was not dependent on DNA condensation; in EMSA (Electrophoretic Mobility Shift Assay) all these reagents exhibited a strong retardation of DNA. In the presence of anti-histone-IgG the transfection potential of histones H3 and H4 was diminished in a concentration - dependent manner. To investigate whether the histone antibodies inhibited the condensation of DNA by histones we carried out gel retardation assays (EMSA) in the absence and in the presence of histone antibodies. Anti-histone-IgG had no effect on the retardation of histone-DNA complexes; on the contrary, retardation was increased. This observation has led us to postulate two models for the possible mechanism by which the histones H3 and H4 catalyze gene transfer in eucaryotic cells.