Post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression in guinea pig tissues

The formation of individual functional mRNA sequences in higher organisms requires many steps in addition to transcription. These include RNA splicing, polyadenylation, base modification, transport from nucleus to cytoplasm and assembly into polyribosomes. Various control mechanisms must also operate. These will function on a quantitative basis to account for the differing frequency of the various classes of cytoplasmic mRNAs, and also on a qualitative basis, because in higher organisms not all the nuclear poly(A)-containing RNA molecules are found in a cytoplasmic poly(A)-containing RNA population from the same tissue. During our studies on the mechanisms controlling the accumulation of the poly(A)-containing RNA sequences which occur with high and moderately high frequency in the cytoplasm of the lactating guinea pig mammary gland, it became apparent that > 75% of the 20,000 or so poly(A)-containing nuclear RNA sequences were not found in the cytoplasmic poly(A)-containing RNA fraction. Here we demonstrate that many of the poly(A)-containing RNA sequences retained in the nucleus of the lactating guinea pig mammary gland are also present in the nucleus and cytoplasm of the liver of the male guinea pig. These observations provide new evidence for a predominant role of post-transcriptional mechanisms in the regulation of structural gene expression in guinea pig tissue.