Increased contractile activity decreases rna-protein interaction in the 3_-untranslated region of cytochrome c mrna. Yan, Zhen, Stanley Salmons, Yan Li Dang, Marc T. Hamilton, and Frank W. Booth. Department of Integrative Biology, University of Texas Medical School, Houston, TX 77225, U.S.A., Department of Human Anatomy and Cell Biology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3BX, U.K.
APStracts 3:0192C, 1996.
This study was designed to gain an insight into mechanisms by which cytochrome?c gene expression is enhanced by increased contractile activity in skeletal muscle. When rat TA muscles were stimulated (10 Hz, 0.25?ms) for 0, 2, 6, 12, 24 hr, 2, 5, 9 or 13 days (n?=?4 for each time point), cytochrome c protein (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) and mRNA (Northern blot analysis) concentrations started to increase by 9 days, and this was associated with concurrent decreases in cytochrome c mRNA-protein interaction (RNA gel mobility shift assay). We found that the decreased RNA-protein interaction in the stimulated muscle extract was restored by ultracentrifugation (150,000 _ g, 1 h) in the supernatant fraction. The 150,000 g pellet fraction of stimulated muscle was capable of inhibiting the RNA -protein interaction in control TA muscles. These results provide evidence of an inhibitory factor that is responsible for decreasing RNA-protein interaction in the 3_-UTR of cytochrome c mRNA in continuously stimulated muscle.

Received 1 December 1995; accepted in final form 4 April 1996.
APS Manuscript Number C719-5.
Article publication pending Am. J. Physiol. (Cell Physiology).
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1996 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 28 June 96