The effect of kinetin on the incorporation of labelled orotate into various fractions of ribonucleic acid of excised radish leaf discs.

Discs from senescing radish leaves were floated either on water or on a solution of kinetin and incubated in the dark. The kinetin-treated discs were fed with orotic acid-5-T and the control discs with orotic acid-6-C(14). The two lots of discs were combined and the RNA extracted by the phenol method. The H(3):C(14) ratio of the RNA after fractionation on sucrose density gradient was compared with the H(3):C(14) ratio of RNA extracted from two lots of control discs, one fed with orotic acid-5-T and the other with orotic acid-6-C(14) and then extracted together. In this way it was found that 21 hours treatment with kinetin causes a small but consistent stimulation of labelled precursor incorporation into all classes of RNA investigated.