Complexity of Polysomal Polyadenylated RNA in Undifferentiated and Differentiated Neuroblastoma Cells

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Abstract
Using c[complementary]DNA probes, the sequence complexity and the frequency distribution of the polysomal poly(A)-containing RNA from mouse neuroblastoma cells was analyzed at 2 different developmental states: either as round, immature neuroblasts, or as differentiated cells exhibiting the morphological properties of mature neurons. The total complexities measured for mRNA from undifferentiated and differentiated cells are identical and correspond to approximately 7000 average-sized sequences of 1750 nucleotides distributed in the same 3 abundance classes. The homology between the mRNA populations corresponding to the 2 developmental states was determined by heterologous cross-hybridization: all the sequences from differentiated cells are present in the polysomes of undifferentiated cells. The mRNA from differentiated cells fails to hybridize with about 15% of hybridizable cDNA corresponding to undifferentiated cells. This difference may result from the disappearance of some mRNA species and may be related to the terminal differentiation of neuroblastoma cells.