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Ribonucleic acid transfer from nucleus to cytoplasm during interphase and mitosis in mouse somatic cells cultured in vitro

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Summary

Kidney cells from primary cultures of 15-day old mouse embryos were incubated for 2, 5 or 10 min with H3-uridine, then either fixed immediately or incubated again for various periods in a “chase” medium containing an excess of unlabeled uridine and cytidine. The number of grains over the non-nucleolar part of the nucleus (chromatin), the nucleolus and the cytoplasm were counted on the autoradiograms.

The grain count showed that both chromatin and nucleolus incorporate very rapidly H3-uridine from the medium, whereas a time lag elapses before any H3-radioactivity above background is detected in the cytoplasm. Incorporation of H3-uridine into the RNA of the nucleus and the nucleolus is not immediately blocked after “chase”, suggesting that the labeled precursor pool is not completely washed out from the living cell, or diluted by the excess of unlabeled uridine present in the medium. The grain count over the nucleus and the nucleolus rises for a certain time after “chase” and then gradually declines; H3-radioactivity appears in the cytoplasm 10 min after “chase” and keeps rising through a 110-min interval. The experiment, then — even though it suggests that the bulk of cellular RNA is synthesized in the chromatin and the nucleolus and then continuously released into the cytoplasm — does not rule out the possibility that some RNA fraction, characterized by a low turnover rate, is synthesized independently in the cytoplasm.

Synthesis of RNA is a continuous process throughout the cell cycle, except during metaphase and anaphase. It ceases at prometaphase after the disappearance of the nucleolus and disintegration of the nuclear membrane, and resumes in early telophase. Part of the chromosomal RNA does not remain associated with the chromosomes through division, but is suddenly released into the cytoplasm when the cell enters metaphase.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratorio di Radiobiologia Animale, Centro Studi Nucleari della Casaccia, Roma

    Valerio Monesi & Marco Crippa

  2. Istituto di Anatomia topografica dell'Universita di Napoli, Italy

    Valerio Monesi & Marco Crippa

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  1. Valerio Monesi
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  2. Marco Crippa
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Monesi, V., Crippa, M. Ribonucleic acid transfer from nucleus to cytoplasm during interphase and mitosis in mouse somatic cells cultured in vitro. Zeitschrift für Zellforschung 62, 807–821 (1964). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00342185

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