[Biochemical and cytospectrophotometric analysis of the extraction of RNA from spinal cord cell structures]

By means of two-wavelength spectrophotometry, according to Tsanev and Markov, a stability of RNA content has been demonstrated in rabbit spinal cord sections treated with cold perchloric acid: it was only after 18 and particularly 48 hr incubation of the section in a 16% perchloric acid solution that the total tissue RNA began to be extracted. Cytospectrophotometrical study of the motoneurons of spinal cord anterior horns and perineuronal glial cells in gallocyanin -- chrome alum stained sections has shown a rapid loss of RNA under effect of the cold perchloric acid: as early as after a 2 hr treatment, about 2/3 of the whole cellular RNA was extracted from the motoneurons, while about 1/2 from their glial satellite cells. Hydrolysis of the rest of RNA was found out in the neurons and in the neuroglia only after a 18 hr extraction with the perchloric acid. Similarities and differences in the features of neuronal and glial RNA are discussed.