Ribonucleic Acids with Messenger Activities in the Cotyledons of Soybean Seeds

Abstract

Ribonucleic acids from the cotyledons of soybean seeds (H-RNA) stimulated the amino acid incorporation in a cell-free system prepared from soybean seedlings at a concentration of 5mM magnesium acetate. In a reticulocyte cell-free system H-RNA stimulated the amino acid incorporation at a concentration of 10mM Mg²⁺, but not at 4.3mM Mg²⁺ Aurintricarboxylate, an inhibitor for the initiation of protein synthesis, inhibited the H-RNA and TMV-RNA-stimulated amino acid incorporation by about 90% and 70% at a concentration of 50 μM in E. coli and soybean seedling systems, respectively. When the H-RNA preparation was passed through a Millipore filter, about 1% of the charged RNA was retained on the filter. Chromatography on plain cellulose of H-RNA resulted in slight enrichment of an RNA fraction with the characteristics of mRNA.