Chain extension of ribonucleic acid by enzymes from rat liver cytoplasm

1. The 105000g supernatant fraction of rat liver catalyses the incorporation of ribonucleotides from ribonucleoside triphosphates into polyribonucleotide material. The reaction requires Mg(2+) ions and is enhanced by the addition of an ATP-generating system and RNA, ATP, UTP and CTP but not GTP are utilized in this reaction. In the case of UTP, the product is predominantly a homopolymer containing 2-3 uridine residues, and there is evidence that these may be added to the 3'-hydroxyl ends of RNA or oligoribonucleotide primers. 2. The microsome fraction of rat liver incorporates ribonucleotides from ATP, GTP, CTP and UTP into polyribonucleotide material. This reaction requires Mg(2+) ions and is enhanced slightly by the addition of an ATP-generating system, and by RNA but not DNA. Supplementation of the reaction mixture with the three complementary ribonucleoside 5'-triphosphates greatly increases the utilization of a single labelled ribonucleoside 5'-triphosphate. The optimum pH is in the range 7.0-8.5, and the reaction is strongly inhibited by inorganic pyrophosphate and to a much smaller degree by inorganic orthophosphate. It is not inhibited by actinomycin D or by deoxyribonuclease. In experiments with [(32)P]UTP in the absence of ATP, GTP and CTP, 80-90% of (32)P was recovered in UMP-2' or -3' after alkaline hydrolysis of the reaction product. When the reaction mixture was supplemented with ATP, GTP and CTP, however, about 40% of the (32)P was recovered in nucleotides other than UMP-2' or -3'. Although the reactions seem to lead predominantly to the synthesis of homopolymers, the possibility of some formation of some heteropolymer is not completely excluded.