Ultrastructural alterations and modifications of nuclear RNA of rat liver by the combined action of thioacetamide and aflatoxin.

When aflatoxin is administered to thioacetamide-treated rats, the synthesis of nuclear RNA not only stops but the RNA that had accumulated in the nuclei by thioacetamide action disappears, probably by degradation "in situ" as none appears in the cytoplasm. Morphologically, the lesions provoked by aflatoxin add to those caused by thioacetamide. In the gigantic nucleoli that develop upon exposure to thioacetamide, aflatoxin provokes atypical segregations that result in the formation of larger and larger spaces in the nucleoli.