Free Ribonucleic Acid Particles in Homogenates of Plant Tissue.

In a study of isolation methods for plant viruses, an extraction buffer was found which permitted the partial purification, by differential centrifugation, of an unstable fruit tree virus from cucumber leaf tissue (2). In applying this procedure to apparently healthy plant tissue, an unexpected number of high particle weight electrophoretic components was found. Some of the electrophoretic components were apparently composed solely of ribonucleic acids, and, as far as we know, this was the first record of the separation of high particle weight nucleic acids from plant cytoplasm.