Abstract
AT fertilisation, the rate of protein synthesis in the sea urchin embryo becomes several times greater than that observed in unfertilised eggs1–4. This increase does not require the synthesis of messenger RNA (mRNA), since it occurs both in the presence of actinomycin D (ref. 5) and in enucleated parthenogenetically activated egg fragments6. These observations led Spirin7 to postulate the existence of preformed “maternal” mRNA in the eggs. Recent experiments have directly demonstrated the presence of mRNA in sea urchin egg cytoplasm by isolating it from postribosomal cytoplasmic fraction and translating it in a heterologous cell-free system8.
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HICKEY, E., WEBER, L. & BAGLIONI, C. Translation of RNA from unfertilised sea urchin eggs does not require methylation and is inhibited by 7-methylguanosine-5′-monophosphate. Nature 261, 71–73 (1976). https://doi.org/10.1038/261071a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/261071a0
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