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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1971 Sep;68(9):2177–2180. doi: 10.1073/pnas.68.9.2177

Cortisone Stimulation of Nucleolar RNA Polymerase Activity

Fu-Li Yu 1,2, Philip Feigelson 1,2
PMCID: PMC389379  PMID: 5289377

Abstract

Four hours after intraperitoneal injection of cortisone acetate into rats, hepatic nuclei had an enhanced ability to incorporate labeled nucleoside triphosphates into RNA in vitro. When the nuclei were further fractionated into nucleolar and extranucleolar (nucleoplasmic) fractions, it was found that this hormonal effect was localized exclusively in the nucleolar fraction. This increased transcriptive activity potentially could be due to either (a) an increased availability of the DNA template or (b) an increase in the amount or catalytic efficiency of the RNA polymerase, or both. In order to distinguish between these possibilities, actinomycin D was used to inhibit the template function of endogenous nucleolar DNA and a synthetic template, polydeoxycytidylate, which is insensitive to actinomycin D and codes for polyriboguanylate synthesis, was used to evaluate RNA polymerase activity. These studies indicate that the increased RNA synthesis evident in nucleoli isolated from livers of rats four hours after cortisone treatment is largely a consequence of elevated levels of RNA polymerase.

Keywords: rat, actinomycin D

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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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