The reactivation of developmentally inert 5S genes in somatic nuclei injected into Xenopus oocytes.

In the frog Xenopus, the somatic-type 5S ribosomal RNA genes are active in all cells; the oocyte-type 5S genes are active in oocytes but not in somatic cells. A new method of native gel electrophoresis resolves the two types of 5S RNA which are of the same length but different sequence. When somatic nuclei were injected into oocytes, their inactive oocyte-type 5S genes often remained inactive, and had thus conserved their developmentally regulated condition. Other conditions, which include treatment with 0.35 M NaCl, reactivated the genes.