A study of the alkaline hydrolysis of fractionated reticulocyte ribosomal ribonucleic acid and its relevance to secondary structure

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Abstract
1. RNA isolated from the sub-units of rabbit reticulocyte ribosomes was hydrolysed by 0·4n-potassium hydroxide at 20°. The probability of main-chain scission was calculated from the number-average chain length, which was obtained from S25,w in 0·01m-phosphate buffer. 2. The fraction, f, of the original secondary structure that the fragments re-formed at neutral pH in 4m-guanidinium chloride, as well as in 0·01m- and 0·1m-phosphate buffer, was derived from changes in extinction over the range 220–310mμ on thermal denaturation. 3. The secondary structure of RNA is regarded as an assembly of hairpin loops each of 2N+b residues on average, where N is the number of base-paired residues and b is the number of unpaired residues. 4. If chain scission takes place at random then 2N+b=logf/log(1–p). 5. For RNA from the smaller sub-unit 2N+b was estimated as 25±5 residues, compared with 30±5 residues for the less stable species and 35±5 residues for the more stable species of hairpin loop of RNA from the larger sub-unit.