THE SEPARATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF SUBMICROSCOPIC COMPONENTS OF HEPATIC CYTOPLASM

Abstract

In an ultracentrifugal study on the cytoplasmic supernatant of rabbit liver, the following two principal components were separated from the supernatant by differential centrifugation and their biochemical properties investigated: (1) a granular substance sedimented at a rate of about 250s (250s component) and (2) a few macromolecular components the sedimentation rates of which were roughly in the range of from 40s to 100s (macromolecular components). The 250s component, which was rich in lipids and easily disintegrated into smaller units by treatments of ultrasonic oscillation and of Nadesoxycholate, exhibited much higher activities of dipeptidase, acid and alkaline phosphatase than the macromolecular components. By contrast, the latter macromolecular components which belonged to ribonucleoprotein complexes exhibited comparatively high activities of RNase and esterase. Uptake in vivo of radioactive phosphate (P32) by the RNA contained in the above two principal components markedly differed from each other. When the RNA contained in the 250s component was separated by the use of Nadesoxycholate into RNA in a non-sedimentable portion and that in a sedimentable portion corresponding to a ribonucleoprotein coplex, the RNA in the latter state showed an uptake rate extremely different from that of the macromolecular components. So it is emphasized that the ribonucleoprotein complex comprised in the 250s component and that existing free in the cytoplasm (i.e. macromolecular components) are metabolically different.