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. 1959 Aug 1;6(1):1–6. doi: 10.1083/jcb.6.1.1

Nuclear-Cytoplasmic Relationships in Human Cells in Tissue Culture

III. Autoradiographic Study of Interrelation of Nuclear and Cytoplasmic Ribonucleic Acid

Lester Goldstein 1, Julie Micou 1
PMCID: PMC2229762  PMID: 13673040

Abstract

The movement of ribonucleic acid (RNA) from nucleus to cytoplasm has been studied, by autoradiographic techniques, in cells of the human amnion grown in tissue culture. Cells were exposed to cytidine-H3 for 1 hour after which time only the RNA of the nuclei was labelled. After this 1 hour exposure the cells were placed in a medium containing an excess amount of unlabelled cytidine. Periodically, cells from this medium were fixed. Autoradiographs showed that there was a progressive movement of the label from nucleus to cytoplasm, such that after 24 hours essentially all the label was in the RNA of the cytoplasm. A study of the incorporation of the cytidine-H3 in deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), in the same population of cells at the same times, indicated that the presence of excess amounts of unlabelled cytidine almost instantaneously inhibited further utilization of cytidine-H3. It is concluded that RNA moves from nucleus to cytoplasm as a complex polynucleotide structure.

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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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