Turnover of Brain Messenger RNA

Abstract

RECENT advances in molecular biology have indicated the importance of messenger RNAs which enable the nucleotide sequence of a specific DNA region to be translated into a specific protein. In mammalian brain, as in liver, such RNA templates can be operationally defined by the presence of RNA strands which help to bind ribosomes into large functional aggregates, polysomes, and by their ability to direct the incorporation of amino-acids into proteins (refs. 1 and 2, and Appel, S. H., Scott, S., and Davis, W., in preparation). The fact that environmental stimuli can alter neuronal RNA raises the question of whether brain template RNAs are sufficiently stable to persist as permanent records of environmental changes.