Skip to main content
NCBI home page
Molecular and Cellular Biology logoLink to Molecular and Cellular Biology
. 1981 Jan;1(1):13–20. doi: 10.1128/mcb.1.1.13

Starvation phase of Physarum polycephalum: characterization of transfer ribonucleic acid.

P W Melera 1, C A Hession 1
PMCID: PMC369322  PMID: 6965092

Abstract

We have begun a series of studies designed to characterize gene expression during differentiation in the slime mold Physarum polycephalum. This work concerns the starvation phase of the sporulation sequence and describes some of the quantitative changes which occur in plasmodial constituents during the 3-day starvation period and also describes alterations in the transfer ribonucleic acid (tRNA) population. The results show that whereas the plasmodial tRNA content decreased by 75% during starvation, concurrent de novo synthesis of tRNA also occurred, and they also show that overall amino acid acceptor activity of the starvation-phase tRNA population did not differ significantly from that found in the growth phase. Of the 19 starvation-phase tRNA families assayed, however, 6 were found to have consistently lower acceptor activities than did their growth-phase counterparts. Reverse-phase (RPC-5) chromatographic analysis of five of those families failed to reveal any major differences between growth- and starvation-phase isoacceptors. The data suggest that the depletion and resynthesis of tRNA during the starvation phase results in a quantitative alteration in the composition of the tRNA population and that the alteration is tRNA family and not tRNA isoacceptor specific.

Full text

PDF
13

Selected References

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

  1. BURTON K. A study of the conditions and mechanism of the diphenylamine reaction for the colorimetric estimation of deoxyribonucleic acid. Biochem J. 1956 Feb;62(2):315–323. doi: 10.1042/bj0620315. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Bradford M. M. A rapid and sensitive method for the quantitation of microgram quantities of protein utilizing the principle of protein-dye binding. Anal Biochem. 1976 May 7;72:248–254. doi: 10.1016/0003-2697(76)90527-3. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. DANIEL J. W., RUSCH H. P. Method for inducing sporulation of pure cultures of the myxomycete Physarum polycephalum. J Bacteriol. 1962 Feb;83:234–240. doi: 10.1128/jb.83.2.234-240.1962. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Garel J. P. Functional adaptation of tRNA population. J Theor Biol. 1974 Jan;43(1):211–225. doi: 10.1016/s0022-5193(74)80054-8. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Hatfield D., Matthews C. R., Rice M. Aminoacyl-transfer RNA populations in mammalian cells chromatographic profiles and patterns of codon recognition. Biochim Biophys Acta. 1979 Oct 25;564(3):414–423. doi: 10.1016/0005-2787(79)90032-7. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Hildebrandt A., Sauer H. W. Transcription of ribosomal RNA in the life cycle of Physarum may be regulated by a specific nucleolar initiation inhibitor. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 1977 Jan 24;74(2):466–472. doi: 10.1016/0006-291x(77)90327-8. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. LOWRY O. H., ROSEBROUGH N. J., FARR A. L., RANDALL R. J. Protein measurement with the Folin phenol reagent. J Biol Chem. 1951 Nov;193(1):265–275. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Le Meur M. A., Gerlinger P., Ebel J. P. Messenger RNA translation in the presence of homologous and heterologous tRNA. Eur J Biochem. 1976 Aug 16;67(2):519–526. doi: 10.1111/j.1432-1033.1976.tb10718.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Melera P. W., Momeni C., Rusch H. P. Analysis of isoaccepting tRNAs during the growth phase mitotic cycle of Physarum polycephalum. Biochemistry. 1974 Sep 24;13(20):4139–4142. doi: 10.1021/bi00717a012. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Melera P. W. Nucleic Acid Metabolism in Germinating Onion: I. Changes in Root Tip Nucleic Acid during Germination. Plant Physiol. 1971 Jul;48(1):73–81. doi: 10.1104/pp.48.1.73. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Melera P. W., Rusch H. P. A characterization of ribonucleic acid in the myxomycete Physarum polycephalum. Exp Cell Res. 1973 Nov;82(1):197–209. doi: 10.1016/0014-4827(73)90262-0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Melera P. W., Rusch H. P. Aminoacylation of transfer ribonucleic acid in vitro during the mitotic cycle of Physarum polycephalum. Biochemistry. 1973 Mar 27;12(7):1307–1311. doi: 10.1021/bi00731a010. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Mohberg J., Rusch H. P. Growth of large plasmodia of the myxomycete Physarum polycephalum. J Bacteriol. 1969 Mar;97(3):1411–1418. doi: 10.1128/jb.97.3.1411-1418.1969. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Palatnik C. M., Katz E. R. Isolation and characterization of transfer RNAs from Dictyostelium discoideum during growth and development. J Biol Chem. 1977 Jan 25;252(2):694–703. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Pearson R. L., Weiss J. F., Kelmers A. D. Improved separation of transfer RNA's on polychlorotrifuoroethylene-supported reversed-phase chromatography columns. Biochim Biophys Acta. 1971 Feb 11;228(3):770–774. doi: 10.1016/0005-2787(71)90748-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Roeder R. G., Rutter W. J. Multiple forms of DNA-dependent RNA polymerase in eukaryotic organisms. Nature. 1969 Oct 18;224(5216):234–237. doi: 10.1038/224234a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Sauer H. W., Babcock K. L., Rusch H. P. Sporulation in Physarum polycephalum: a model system for studies on differentiation. Exp Cell Res. 1969 Oct;57(2):319–327. doi: 10.1016/0014-4827(69)90156-6. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. Sharma O. K., Beezley D. N., Borek E. Modulation of the synthesis in vitro of a hormone-induced protein by transfer RNA. Nature. 1976 Jul 1;262(5563):62–63. doi: 10.1038/262062a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  19. Sharma O. K., Beezley D. N., Roberts W. K. Limitation of reticulocyte transfer RNA in the translation of heterologous messenger RNAs. Biochemistry. 1976 Sep 21;15(19):4313–4318. doi: 10.1021/bi00664a027. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  20. Smith D. W., McNamara A. L. Specialization of rabbit reticulocyte transfer RNA content for hemoglobin synthesis. Science. 1971 Feb 12;171(3971):577–579. doi: 10.1126/science.171.3971.577. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  21. Weinmann R., Roeder R. G. Role of DNA-dependent RNA polymerase 3 in the transcription of the tRNA and 5S RNA genes. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1974 May;71(5):1790–1794. doi: 10.1073/pnas.71.5.1790. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  22. Yang W. K. Isoaccepting transfer RNA's in mammalian differentiated cells and tumor tissues. Cancer Res. 1971 May;31(5):639–643. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Molecular and Cellular Biology are provided here courtesy of Taylor & Francis

RESOURCES