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Amino Acid Incorporation by in Vitro Tumor and Liver Systems and Their Response to Exogenous Ribonucleic Acid

M. A. O'Neal^* and A. C. Griffin

( Department of Biochemistry, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute, Houston, Texas)

A procedure is described for the isolation of amino acid-incorporating systems from Novikoff ascites tumor and from rat liver. Under the conditions employed the tumor system will incorporate approximately 30–70 µµmoles of amino acid/mg ribosomal protein when C¹⁴-labeled valine, phenylalanine, or lysine is added to the incubation medium. Addition of ribonucleic acid preparations from tumor and liver nuclei, tumor ribosomes, or tobacco mosaic virus to the tumor amino acid-incorporating system caused a 16–45 per cent increase in amino acid incorporation. Addition of polyuridylic acid to the tumor system with C¹⁴-L-phenylalanine caused a seven- to tenfold increase in the incorporation of this amino acid. These findings indicate that this mammalian system responds to the same nucleotide coding sequence for phenylalanine as E. coli and provide evidence that the tumor-incorporating system will respond to a limited extent to natural ribonucleic acids and to synthetic polynucleotides.

^* Present address: Division of Biology, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California.

American Cancer Society Professor of Biochemistry.

Received 11/ 5/62.