Functional half-lives of bacteriophage m13 gene 5 and gene 8 messages.

The half-lives of the M13 gene 5 and gene 8 messages were determined by measuring the decay in the rate of synthesis of the gene 5 and gene 8 proteins after inhibition of new RNA chain initiations with rifampin. The gene 5 and gene 8 messages decay with half-lives of approximately 2.5 and 5 min, respectively. We found no evidence of a functional M13 message with a half-life as long as that reported for hybridizable mRNA.