Molecular biology and biochemistry of differentiation.

Recent work in the field of molecular biology and differentiation has been directed towards an assessment of the number of different genes involved in the development and differentiation process. By the techniques of RNA-DNA hybridization to single copy DNA, it appears that some 60,000-200,000 different RNA sequences are expressed during embryonic development in the mouse. The differentiating brain shows the highest degree RNA transcription diversity. The new technique of cDNA-poly(A)-containing RNA hybridization is described. The nuclear poly(A)-containing RNA appears to reflect the high complexity of sequences as determined in RNA-DNA experiments described above. The cytoplasmic poly(A)-containing RNA or messenger RNA appears to represent a subset of approximately 10-20% of the information in the nuclear poly (A)-RNA. Also, the major portion of frequency class of messenger RNA in different organs such as kidney, spleen, and liver are common to these different organs. However, brain, although containing many of the cytoplasmic messenger RNA sequences found in liver, kidney, and spleen, has a large class of messenger RNA sequences which are specific to the nervous system.