Degradation of Ribonucleic Acid by Extracts of Germinating Peas

Abstract

IT has been demonstrated^1,2 that acridine orange forms a complex with polynucleotides and that this leads to inhibition of polynucleotide phosphorylase by the dye. It has also been shown that acridine orange inhibits the degradation of RNA in isolated nuclei which is attributed to phosphorolysis³; other dyes such as acriflavine and proflavine were also found to inhibit the degradation of RNA, but acridine red and acridine yellow were without effect. In connexion with experiments on the degradation of RNA in germinating peas, it was of interest to investigate the effect of dyes on this system. In view of current work in other laboratories⁴ on which the present investigations have a bearing, the results are briefly reported.