Characterisation by molecular hybridization of RNA fragments isolated from ancient (1400 B.C.) seeds.

The analysis of cress seeds from Thebes dated approximately 1400 years B.C. showed that fragments of RNA up to 10 bases in length were still present in the ancient seeds. After having been made radioactive at the 5'OH terminus, the RNA fragments were used as probes in a spot hybridization experiment. They were shown to hybridize to cress DNA and, to a lesser extent, to that of phylogenetically distant species. When fixed onto nitrocellulose and probed with different cloned genes, the RNA fragments were shown to originate from breakage of the 25 and 18s cytoplasmic rRNA.