Abstract
Thyroglobulin is synthesized in the thyroid gland and is subsequently degraded to provide thyroid hormones. Rat thyroglobulin is made up of two identical 330 kD subunits, and the mRNA for each subunit contains about 8,500 nucleotides. Since polysomes have approximately one ribosome for each 90-100 nucleotides of mRNA, a polysome of about 85-95 ribosomes would be expected for thyroglobulin. We have been interested in how this very large polysomes is organized on the membranes of the rough endoplasmic reticulum (RER).It is well known that bound polysomes assume characteristic shapes on the surface of the RER, resembling beads on a string arranged in circles, spirals, loops, hairpins or other forms. These polysomal shapes can be observed in conventional electron micrographs when the membranes of the RER are seen in surface or en face view, rather than in the usual cross section. Clearcut surface views are infrequent, but the likelihood of seeing them is greatly improved when flattened cells in culture are sectioned in the plane of the cell, since the RER in a flattened cell tends to be oriented in that plane.
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