Wheat embryo ribonucleates XI. Conserved mRNA in dry wheat embryos and its relation to protein synthesis during early inhibition

Abstract

It has been found that bulk poly(A)-rich RNA from dry wheat embryos is broadly heterodisperse when examined by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The poly(A)-rich RNA from dry wheat embryos has been translated in a cell-free protein-synthesizing system from the same commerically supplied, roller-milled wheat embryos. Compatiable with the electrophoretic heterodispersity observed for poly(A)-rich RNA, the radioactive products of its cell-free translation, when examined by sodium dodecyl sulphate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, have mobilities that are broadly coincident with the many dye-stained (nonradioactive) proteins present in wheat extracts. With due allowance for the limitations of the cell-free system, which is known to translate, selectively, lower molecular-weight species of mRNA, it has been concluded that the conserved poly(A)-rich mRNA in dry wheat embryos probably has the translational capacity required to account for the highly eclectic protein synthesis that we have observed during early (40-min) inhibition of viable wheat embryos.