Hybridization properties of nucleolar ribonucleic acid

Rat liver nuclei were fractionated into chromatin and nucleolar fractions. Chromatin DNA, which does not form hybrids with rRNA, was, nevertheless, able to hybridize with 32P-labelled total nucleolar RNA. The optimal temperature for this hybridization was 55 degrees C when the reaction was carried out in 2 X SSC (0.3 MnaCl + 0.3 M-sodium citrate). The hybrids formed were specific, as judged by analysis of thermal elution profiles. The low Tm (73 degreesC) observed could be explained by the low amount of DNA in the filters. The lenth of the hybridized sequences was extimated as 54 mucleotide pairs. Contamination to nucleolar RNA by nucleoplasmic RNA was ruled out by showing the former was able to form more hybrids than the latter. Competition experiments showed that hybridization of nucleolar RNA, although not competed with by rRNA, suffered pronounced competition from total microsomal RNA, even though the levels of competition obtained did not equal thsoe with cold nucleolar RNA as competitor.