Development, Vol 106, Issue 1 11-16, Copyright © 1989 by Company of Biologists

JOURNAL ARTICLES

Biochemical research on oogenesis. RNA accumulation in the oocytes of the newt Pleurodeles waltl

H Van den Eynde, A Mazabraud and H Denis
Department Biochemie, Universiteit Antwerpen (UIA), Belgium.

We have compared the accumulation of 5S RNA and tRNA in oocytes of Pleurodeles waltl with the corresponding process previously studied in Xenopus laevis. 5S RNA synthesis is regulated similarly in both species since different families of 5S RNA genes are transcribed in oocytes and in somatic cells of P. waltl, as in those of X. laevis. Previtellogenic oocytes of P. waltl contain only one prominent kind of storage particles (thesaurisomes). In contrast, X. laevis oocytes of the same size contain two major classes of thesaurisomes, sedimenting at 42S and 7S. The more abundant particles found in P. waltl oocytes are homologous to the larger thesaurisomes (42S) of X. laevis, but they have a lower sedimentation coefficient and a higher tRNA/5S RNA molar ratio than their X. laevis counterparts. Small amounts of particles which we think to be homologous to the 7S particles of X. laevis are present in previtellogenic oocytes of P. waltl. Therefore, the storage function of the 7S particle protein (TFIIIA) is only marginal in this species. In X. laevis oocytes TFIIIA has a second function. It acts as a positive transcription factor involved in the developmentally regulated expression of the 5S RNA genes. In X. laevis expression of the oocyte-type 5S RNA genes is accompanied by a massive accumulation of TFIIIA. This is not the case in P. waltl.