THE EFFECTS OF CORTISOL ON THE INCORPORATION OF GLYCINE CARBON INTO THE NUCLEIC ACIDS OF NORMAL AND MALIGNANT TISSUES

Abstract

ABSTRACT Normal and hepatoma bearing rats were treated with cortisol in order to study the effect of adrenal steroids on nucleic acid metabolism of different tissues. Normal liver, precancerous liver, hepatoma nodules and skeletal muscle were used in these experiments. The incorporation of 14C from glycine-2-14C into RNA and DNA fractions of different tissues was examined. The incorporation of glycine carbon into RNA of normal and precancerous liver was found to be stimulated by cortisol treatment. The RNA fraction of hepatoma tissue of non treated animals showed a higher incorporation level than that observed in liver, but incorporation was drastically inhibited by cortisol. The DNA fraction of hepatoma tissue showed a higher incorporation than the DNA fraction from the other tissues examined, and followed the same incorporation pattern as RNA. The incorporation of 14C into the nucleic acids of skeletal muscle was not affected by cortisol treatment.