Turnover of polyadenylate-containing ribonucleic acid in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

We examined the kinetics of incorporation of [3H]adenine into polyadenylate-containing ribonucleic acid [poly(A)-containing RNA] in yeast. The total poly(A)-containing RNA from spheroplasts and intact cells and the polysomal poly(A)-containing RNA exhibited similar incorporation kinetics. At 30 C half-saturation of the pool of poly(A)-containing RNA with label occurred in approximately 22 min. Since precursor pools appeared to require 5 min to saturate with label, we conclude that at 30 C messenger RNA molecules in yeast decay with an average half-life of 17 min.