Turnover of polyadenylate containing ribonucleic acid in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Abstract

The authors examined the kinetics of incorporation of [3H]adenine into polyadenylate containing ribonucleic acid [poly(A) containing RNA] in yeast. The total poly(A) containing RNA from spheroplasts and intact cells and the polysomal poly(A) containing RNA exhibited similar incorporation kinetics. At 30 C half saturation of the pool of poly(A) containing RNA with label occurred in approximately 22 min. Since precursor pools appeared to require 5 min to saturate with label, it is concluded that at 30 C messenger RNA molecules in yeast decay with an average half life of 17 min.