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. 1970 Apr;65(4):1049–1056. doi: 10.1073/pnas.65.4.1049

Template Properties of Complementary Fractions of Denatured Microbial Deoxyribonucleic Acids*

John D Karkas 1,2, Rivka Rudner 1,2, Erwin Chargaff 1,2
PMCID: PMC283021  PMID: 4985881

Abstract

DNA preparations from seven bacterial species and from E. coli phage T4, and also the complementary L and H fractions into which these DNA specimens, after denaturation, were separated by chromatography on methylated albumin-kieselguhr columns, were studied as templates in the RNA polymerase system, and the nucleotide composition of the RNA products was determined. The RNA transcripts of the separated L and H fractions were found to be faithful copies of the respective DNA fractions. This suggests „transcription analysis” as a sensitive and reliable analytical technique for the determination of the base composition of denatured DNA. The L and H fractions of T4 DNA were shown, both by temperature-absorbance profiles and by transcription analysis, to be mutually complementary. The RNA products formed with intact DNA as the template were not exact copies of the latter; their composition indicated that under our experimental conditions the „heavy” DNA strand is transcribed preferentially.

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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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