Occurrence of RNA in Glyoxysomes From Castor Bean Endosperm

The finding that in the endosperm of germinating castor bean, the enzymes of the glyoxylate cycle were housed in a special organelle, the glyoxysome (1,2) raised the question of its biogenesis. We have shown that glyoxysome protein increases strikingly during the early stages of germination and concluded that rapid formation of new organelles occurs at this time (8). When the individual organelle fractions separated by sucrose density gradient centrifugation (2) were examined, RNA was shown to be present in mitochondria, proplastids, and glyoxysomes. In this report results are presented on the nucleic acid content of glyoxysomes subjected to further purification by means of flotation gradients.