Effect of a specific neuronal growth factor on RNA metabolism by sensory ganglia from chick embryo

Abstract When sensory ganglia from 8-day old chick embryos are incubated in vitro , the growth of the nerve cells depends upon the presence in the medium of a specific protein factor (NGF) ( Levi-Montalcini and Cohen, 1960 ; Levi-Montalcini and Angeletti, 1963 ). Under these conditions effects of NGF on the main processes of protein metabolism have been observed (Angeletti et al , in preparation): during the time preceeding the morphological phenomena (the first 6 hrs) ganglia incubated in the presence of NGF definitely showed higher rates of: a) amino acid incorporation into the cell proteins, b) loss of previously incorporated amino acids. All these observations have raised our interest in a study of the connections between NGF and RNA metabolism. This is the subject of the present work.