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Updated: Aug 1, 2026

In vivo Interrogation of Central Nervous System Translatome by Polyribosome Fractionation
Published on: April 30, 2014
Contribution of polyadenylate sequences to the translational efficiency of globin messenger RNAs
A Parets Soler1, D Gozalbo, J Zueco
1Departament de Microbiologia, Facultat de Farmacia, Universitat de València, Spain.
Abstract:
mRNAs from reticulocyte polysomes were fractionated by chromatography on poly(U)-Sepharose and thermal elution. The molar ratio of alpha- to beta-globin mRNA was found to be 2:1 and 1:1 respectively in short- and long-poly(A) size classes. Translational analyses indicated that the globin mRNAs containing long poly(A) tracts (with a mean length of about 70 nucleotides) directed protein synthesis with higher rates than did mRNA containing short poly(A) tracts (15-35 nucleotides). Experiments performed with sub-saturating mRNA concentrations showed that the digestion with RNAase H induced a decrease in the translational capacity of both globin mRNAs and an increase in the alpha- to beta-globin synthesis ratio. No correlation was observed between the size of the poly(A) tail in mRNA and the optimal K+ requirement for translation.
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