Occurrence of Uridylate-Rich Oligonucleotide Regions in Heterogeneous Nuclear RNA of HeLa Cells

Abstract

Heterogeneous nuclear RNA molecules from HeLa cells contain a specific segment of about 30 nucleotides length that is largely (about 80%) uridylic acid. This oligo(U) segment is located predominantly in the larger (70S-90S) heterogeneous nuclear RNA molecules, and is essentially absent in messenger RNA and 45S ribosomal precursor RNA molecules. The oligo(U) hybridizes rapidly to cellular DNA, suggesting that it is transcribed from the repeated regions of the DNA.