Deoxyribonucleoproteins in this kind of complex interact to generate a multiprotein regulatory complex in which the intervening DNA is looped or wound. The deoxyribonucleoproteins participate in regulating DNA replication and transcription.

Deoxyribonucleoproteins are also involved in homologous recombination, a process for repairing DNA that appears to be nearly universal. A central intermediate step in this process is the interaction of multiple copies