The Response of The Young Tomato Plant to a Brief Period of Water Shortage. IV. Effects of Water Stress on the Ribonucleic Acid Metabolism of Tomato Leaves.

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Abstract
Moisture stress is known to inhibit not only growth and dry weight accumulation of young tomato leaves but also the accumulation by such leaves of nitrogen and phosphorus. The present work has shown that moisture stress also suppresses net increases in the RNA of such leaves. The leaves of moisture stressed tomato plants possess the ability to incorporate P32-iabeled phosphate in RNA even though they do not exhibit any net synthesis of the material. It is concluded that in the leaves of moisture stressed tomato plants, rate of destruction of RNA may be increased above the rate characteristic of control, non-moisture stressed leaves. This conclusion is further supported by the experimental fact that osmotically induced moisture stress increases rate of RNA loss in excised tomato leaves.