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Biosynthetic Precursors of Some Modified Nucleosides in the Transfer Ribonucleic Acid of Mycoplasma mycoides var. capri

¹ Chemistry Department, The University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, England

ABSTRACT

The ribosomal and transfer ribonucleic acid (tRNA) from Mycoplasma mycoides var. capri, grown in a medium containing uridine-(¹⁴C)-5'-triphosphate and cytidine-(5-³H)-5'-triphosphate, were isolated and separated. The uridine in both species of RNA was shown to contain ¹⁴C and the cytidine to contain both ³H and ¹⁴C. Comparison of the labeling of 4-thiouridine and pseudouridine, obtained from an enzymatic digest of the RNA, indicates that their biosynthetic precursor is uridine, not cytidine. It is probable that ribothymidine and dihydrouridine have the same derivation.