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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
. 1973 Aug;70(8):2386–2390. doi: 10.1073/pnas.70.8.2386

RNA Polymerases of Maize. Purification and Molecular Structure of DNA-dependent RNA Polymerase II*

Kathleen P Mullinix 1,, Gustave C Strain 1,, Lawrence Bogorad 1
PMCID: PMC433741  PMID: 4525172

Abstract

Nuclear DNA-dependent RNA polymerase II has been purified from leaves of Zea mays by a new procedure that improves enzyme stability and thus permits more manipulation during purification. The purification procedure includes a heating step, gel filtration on Sepharose 6B and 4B, and chromatography on DEAE- and DNA-celluloses. This method of purification yields an enzyme that exhibits maximal activity when denatured DNA is used as a template. Electrophoresis of highly purified enzyme on polyacrylamide gels containing sodium dodecyl sulfate indicates that maize RNA polymerase IIa is composed of several polypeptide subunits. The most highly purified preparations contain polypeptides with molecular weights of 200,000, 160,000, 35,000, 25,000, 20,000, and 17,000.

Keywords: polypeptide subunits

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Selected References

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