Preparation of ribosome-free membranes from rat liver microsomes by means of lithium chloride

Abstract

1. Treatment of washed rat liver microsomes in a medium containing 0·12m-sucrose, 12·5mm-potassium chloride, 2·5mm-magnesium chloride and 25mm-tris–hydrochloric acid buffer, pH7·6, with 2m-lithium chloride at 5° for 16hr. leads to the formation of membranes free of ribosomes and ribosomal subunits. 2. Confirmation of the absence of ribosomes from lithium chloride-prepared membranes was obtained by treatment of the membranes with sodium deoxycholate, followed by sucrose-density-gradient centrifugation, which showed the complete absence of ribosomes. 3. Treatment of membranes with phenol, followed by sucrose-density-gradient analysis of the isolated RNA, showed the presence of a small amount of 4s material. Repetition of the phenol extraction procedure in the presence of liver cell sap as a ribonuclease inhibitor again showed the presence of only 4s material. The 4s RNA was shown to be transfer RNA by the fact that it had the same capacity for accepting ¹⁴C-labelled amino acids as isolated transfer RNA from rat liver pH5 enzyme. 4. Analysis showed that microsomes and membranes possessed similar glucose 6-phosphatase, NADH–2,6-dichlorophenol-indophenol reductase, NADH–neo-tetrazolium reductase, NADH–cytochrome c reductase and ribonuclease activities. 5. ³H-labelled ribosomal RNA binds to membranes. However, isolation of the bound RNA by the phenol extraction procedure, followed by sucrose-density-gradient analysis, shows the RNA to be degraded to 7s material. Very little breakdown of ³H-labelled ribosomal RNA bound to membranes occurs if the binding and isolation are carried out in the presence of liver cell sap.