The presence of ribonucleic acid in the cell walls of higher plants

A method for isolating extensively purified cell walls from higher plants is described; the preparations contain no detectable chloroplast or nuclear material and the protein content (2–5% of the dry wt. of walls) indicates that there is little contamination with cytoplasm. Incubation of purified cell walls with 0·3n-potassium hydroxide for 17hr. at 37° liberates ribonucleotides, which can be purified by adsorption on charcoal and by ion-exchange chromatography. Ribonucleotides are also liberated by incubating the walls with ribonuclease, but not with deoxyribonuclease. The RNA content varies from 0·5 to 6mg./g. dry wt. of walls, depending on the nature and age of the tissue, and at 3mg./g. dry wt. of walls accounts for about 7% of the total RNA of the tissue. Less than 0·2% of the RNA of the walls is due to the presence of bacteria in the preparation. The base composition of the cell-wall RNA is identical with that of ribosomal RNA.