Polymorphism in fowl serum albumin. VI. Changes in in vitro protein synthesizing activity in developing embryonic...

Cell-free protein synthesizing systems were prepared from the livers of chick embryos at selected ages and the characteristics of individual fractions were compared. While polysomes showed decreasing size with older embryos, isolated polysomes did not differ significantly in amino acid incorporating activity when assayed with standard cell sap. When assayed with standard polysomes, cell sap activity decreased with increasing developmental age whether incorporation was measured using (3H)lysine, (3H)leucine, or [3H]aminoacyl-tRNA. Free amino acid concentrations in the cell sap showed reproducidble independent variation during development which was taken into consideration in calculating net amino acid incorporation. A larger increase in ribonuclease activity was observed during development; however, nuclease inhibitor activity was absent before day 15 but increased thereafter. Aminoacyl-tRNA sythetase activity did not vary significantly. It is proposed that the observed changes in the rate of cell-free protein synthesis result not only from increasing ribonuclease activity with increasing developmental age but also from changes in the activity of other soluble factors.