Effects of centrifugal force on functional and structural integrity of rat liver ribosomes

The ability of rat liver ribosomes to support in vitro protein synthesis was not adversely affected, and generally tended to increase as the centrifugal force at which they were isolated increased. Polysomal material tended to decrease while 40S and 60S ribosomal subunits apparently increased at progressively higher centrifugal forces. Ribosomal "purity", revealed by u.v. spectrophotometric analysis, deteriorated as centrifugal force increased. Contamination by material that absorbed at 230 nm was particularly evident.