The effect of oestradiol on the acid-soluble nucleotides of rat uterus

1. Techniques have been developed to measure the concentrations of the ribonucleotides of the immature rat uterus in vivo. Tissue was frozen rapidly in liquid nitrogen, ground to a fine powder, dispersed in frozen perchloric acid and thawed slowly. Nucleotides were separated from other acid-soluble constituents on short columns of polyethyleneimine-cellulose and the mixture was resolved into individual nucleotides by two-dimensional thin-layer chromatography on polyethyl-eneimine-cellulose plates. 2. The nucleotides of immature rat uterus consisted of approximately 75% of ATP-ADP, 10-12% each of GTP-GDP and UTP-UDP and less than 2% of CTP. 3. Injection of oestradiol (5mug) promoted a linear decrease in the amounts of purine nucleotides to approximately 60% of control values in 4-5h, followed by a return to greater than control values in 8-10h. Concentrations of the pyrimidine nucleotides remained constant for 4-6h and then increased to 200% of control at 12h after hormone treatment.