[Rapidly labelled low molecular weight components in nucleic acid preparations from plant cells]

After pulse-labelling with [(3)H]nucleosides and [(3)H]orotic acid of freely suspended callus cells of Petroselinum sativum and tissue fragments of the liverwort Riella helicophylla, rapidly labelled low molecular weight components were detected among the total nucleic acids when these were extracted in the presence of Mg(2+) and finally precipitated with alcohol. These highly labelled species could clearly be distinguished from the 5 S- and 4 S-RNA on the basis of their migration in agarose-polyacrylamide gels (2.4%) and their elution from Sephadex G-150 columns. No degradation was obtained with DNase and RNase. By using [(14)C]ATP as a marker it was found that the low molecular components consisted mainly of nucleoside triphosphates. Only small amounts of nucleoside diphosphates were detected, which were obviously formed by degradation of the former. Nucleic acid preparations free of nucleoside phosphates were obtained by using Mg-free extraction buffers containing EDTA.