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The inactivation of soluble ribonucleic acid by formaldehyde
Author(s) -
Penniston John T.,
Doty Paul
Publication year - 1963
Publication title -
biopolymers
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.556
H-Index - 125
eISSN - 1097-0282
pISSN - 0006-3525
DOI - 10.1002/bip.360010303
Subject(s) - chemistry , formaldehyde , reagent , protein secondary structure , transfer rna , macromolecule , rna , acceptor , active site , amino acid , amino acid residue , molecule , biochemistry , organic chemistry , enzyme , peptide sequence , physics , gene , condensed matter physics
The inactivation of sRNA by reaction with formaldehyde has been reported as it occurs under various conditions giving differing amounts of secondary structure. The theory of inactivation of an active macromolecule by a chemical reaction is developed. Results obtained with a partially melted out secondary structure show that formaldehyde inactivates sRNA by a single reaction at any one of about ten sites, while reaction at other sites does not affect the activity of the sRNA. In the presence of Mg ++ at neutral pH, a large proportion of the active molecules are completely protected against inactivation. From the correlation between the amount of secondary structure and the difficulty of inactivation, it is shown that at least a portion of the secondary structure of sRNA is essential to its amino acid acceptor ability. A comparison of results of various workers shows that formaldehyde does not alter RNA as drastically as other reagents and thus enables more discrimination between sites of reaction which are essential and those which are not essential to biochemical activity.