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A Procedure for Comparing Growing and Non‐growing Tetrahymena Cultures: Ribonucleotide Pools in Tetrahymena Starved for the Essential Amino Acid Histidine 1
Author(s) -
GROVE BARBARA F.,
CONNER ROBERT L.
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
the journal of protozoology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.067
H-Index - 77
eISSN - 1550-7408
pISSN - 0022-3921
DOI - 10.1111/j.1550-7408.1988.tb04347.x
Subject(s) - tetrahymena , biology , energy charge , histidine , biochemistry , ribonucleotide , purine , amino acid , nucleotide , microbiology and biotechnology , enzyme , gene , adenylate kinase
A new starvation procedure permitted the study of early events in a protozoon's growth cycle. Growing cultures of Tetrahymena that differed from non‐growing cultures by one variable were produced by adding histidine to cells deprived of that amino acid in an otherwise complete medium. Alterations of the nucleotide pools were examined in +His and in ‐His cultures in the period preceding RNA synthesis by cells in +His medium. High performance liquid chromatographic analysis provided a balance sheet for the difference in purine compounds in the two cultures. The change in rNTP levels occurred only when the cells were resuspended in a fresh medium and was not a function of cell density. These observations point to the presence of a factor(s) in the old medium that inhibits the energy charge increase in rNTP and in purine accumulation.