H. R. Leffler, T. O'brien, D. V. Glover
Jan 23, 1970
Citations
0
Influential Citations
5
Citations
Journal
Biochemical and biophysical research communications
Abstract
Abstract Corn seeds were treated with the chemical mutagen ethyl methanesulfonate and the resulting seedlings were examined for growth and RNA synthesis. Ethyl methanesulfonate treatments reduced shoot elongation, seedling growth, and chromatin-directed RNA polymerase activity of shoot tissues. The chromatin RNA polymerase activity of control seedlings peaked at 24 h. This peak was delayed up to 12 h by the chemical mutagen treatment. Saturation of embryonic axis chromatin with E . coli RNA polymerase indicated that ethyl methanesulfonate increased the amount of DNA available as template. In both the treated and control axes, the available template decreased with tissue differentiation.