Vergleichende Untersuchungen an hochmolekularer Ribosenucleinsäure

Abstract

High molecular ribonucleic acid isolated with phenol from the microsomes of animal tissues and from unfractionated plant tissues show two main components in the sedimentation diagram. Their molecular weight is calculated on the basis of sedimentation and viscosity measurements to be around 1.8· 106 and 0.6· 106, respectively. The kinetics of degradation by ribonuclease suggests that the RNA molecule is made up by a single strand of nucleotides. Its structural features are similar to those of the viral RNA from tobacco mosaic virus. The molecular weight of the larger component corresponds approximately to the RNA content of cytoplasmatic ribonucleoprotein particles, as well as to that of small viruses. This suggests a functional relation of that component of cellular RNA to the viral RNA