H. Schuster
Aug 1, 1961
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Influential Citations
91
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Journal
Journal of molecular biology
Abstract
The pyrimidine bases of tobacco mosaic virus RNA react with hydroxylamine under rather mild conditions. By using the nucleosides and nucleotides of the corresponding bases the reaction mechanism with hydroxylamine was clarified. Uridine was split into ribosyl-urea and 5-isoxazolone. Cytidine only added hydroxylamine presumably to the C 4 –C 5 double bond, readily converting the C 6 amino-group to the keto-group. In the RNA eytosine at pH 6 reacted with hydroxylamine at least 30 times faster than uracil did, whereas at pH 9 uracil reacted at least 8 times faster than cytosine. Thus the reaction could be controlled to give the rather specific base elimination or alteration without splitting the polynucleotide chain. The applications of the findings for studies with infectious nucleic acid are discussed.