The effect of modified culture conditions on protein synthesis in the rabbit lens

Freshly isolated rabbit lenses were incubated in either acidic, basic or physiological medium. The lenses were cultivated for either six hours or for 48 hours. The lens protein synthesis was monitored by measuring amount of radioactive precursor incorporated in the marker proteins. It was found that the alpha crystallin synthesis is pH dependent, whereas other lens marker proteins (IF and MP-26) are not pH dependent for the first six hours of incubation, and only intermediate filament showed diminished synthetic activity in the acidic medium, in the 48 hour cultures.