The use of chaotropic salts for separation of ribonucleic acids and proteins from yeast nucleoproteins.

The effect of chaotropic salts on the dissociation of ribonucleic acid from yeast nucleoprotein complex was studied. The effectiveness of various salts on the dissociation of ribonucleic acid followed the chaotropic series; i.e., Cl(3)CCOONa = NaClO(4) > NaBr > NaCl. Treatment of the nucleoprotein complex with 0.5M Cl(3)CCOONa or NaClO(4) resulted in RNA removal of about 80%, whereas NaCl and NaBr removed only about 10 and 25%, respectively. Based on the results presented, a simple and novel method for industrial-scale preparation of single-cell proteins with low levels of nucleic acid is proposed.