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. 1973 May;134(1):249–262. doi: 10.1042/bj1340249

Ribonucleic acid synthesis in chloroplasts

M R Hartley 1, R J Ellis 1
PMCID: PMC1177805  PMID: 4723226

Abstract

Chloroplasts isolated from young spinach leaves incorporate [3H]uridine into RNA. This incorporation shows an absolute requirement for light and does not occur in lysed chloroplasts. Fractionation by polyacrylamide-gel electrophoresis of the RNA synthesized in vitro reveals a major discrete product of molecular weight 2.7×106 and two minor products of molecular weight 1.2×106 and 0.47×106. These discrete products are super-imposed on a background of polydisperse RNA. The incorporation of 32Pi into chloroplast rRNA species (mol.wt. 1.05×106 and 0.56×106) in excised spinach leaves proceeds after a distinct lag period compared with the incorporation into cytoplasmic rRNA species (mol.wt. 1.34×106 and 0.7×106). Incorporation of 32Pi into chloroplast RNA species of molecular weight 2.7×106, 1.2×106, 0.65×106 and 0.47×106 proceeds without such a time-lag. The kinetics of labelling of the individual RNA components is consistent with the rapidly labelled RNA species of molecular weight 1.2×106 and 0.65×106 being precursors to the more slowly labelled rRNA species of molecular weight 1.05×106 and 0.56×106 respectively.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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