Glycerol inhibition of purified and chromatin-associated mouse liver hepatoma RNA polymerase II activity

The stability of mouse liver hepatoma RNA polymerase II is dependent on the type of buffer, pH and, most importantly, the glycerol concentration of the incubation or storage buffer. Glycerol above 2% or 15% shows a linearly increasing inhibition of enzyme activity with increasing glycerol concentration for purified RNA polymerase II and chromatin-associated RNA polymerase II, respectively. At 25% glycerol the activity of purified enzyme on DNA template was inhibited approximately 50% whereas the chromatin-associated activity was inhibited only approximately 30%. RNA polymerase I activity was not inhibited by glycerol at the concentrations examined.