Summary
Labelling experiments with 14C-guanine have shown that the degradation products of E. coli mRNA are completely employed for the synthesis of T4 phage specific nucleic acids. Also, the host DNA labelling is completely recovered in the phage DNA whereas the stable RNA is quantitatively unaffected. Kinetic experiments lead to estimate the half life of the host mRNA to 3.5 minutes, its instantaneous rate of synthesis to 25–30% of the total RNA and its amount to 3.8% of this total.
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Communicated by F. Gros
This investigation was supported by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (L.A. No 86 and 136), the Institut Pasteur, the Délégation Générale à la Recherche Scientifique and the Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale.
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Vigier, P.R.R., Marcovich, H. The E. coli mRNA as a precursor for the T4 phage nucleic acids. Molec. gen. Genet. 133, 353–362 (1974). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00332711
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00332711