Complexes of Polyphosphates with Nucleic Acids

PolyP-ribonucleic acid complexes have been isolated from a variety of organisms (Belozersky, 1955,1958, 1959a Chayenetal. 1955 ChaloupkaandBabicky, 1957, 1958  

Kulaev and Belozersky, 1957,1958 Ebel etal., 1958c, 1962,1963 LangenandLiss, 1958 Stahl and Ebel, 1963 Wang and Manchini, 1966). 

Comparison of the peak areas on the electrophoregrams showed, however, that the PolyP component was much smaller than it should have been had it contained all of the PolyP present in the complex. Thus, in the less PolyP-rich fraction, instead of a PolyP/RNA ratio of 1 4, the electrophoregram showed a ratio of 1 11, and electophoregram examination of a fraction with a PolyP/RNA ratio of 9 1 gave peaks in the ratio of 4 1. This suggested that some part of the PolyP present in these fractions was combined with the RNA, while the other part was in the free state. 

The question of the functions of RNA-PolyP complexes needs further investigation. It is probable that the complexing with PolyP enhances the RNA stability. Some evidence has been obtained that in E. coli PolyPs inhibit RNA degradation by degradosome (Blum et al, 1997). 

The possibility of PolyP interaction with DNA is now confirmed by data evidencing its participation in gene activity control (Kornberg, 1999 Kornberg et al, 1999). Earlier, 

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