Solubilized nuclear DNA-dependent RNA polymerases from normal rat mammary glands and from transplantable R-35 rat mammary tumors.

The three major nuclear DNA-dependent RNA polymerases (enzymes I, II and III) were present in nuclear extracts from transplantable R-35 rat mammary tumors. Except for somewhat less enzyme III, their relative distribution resembled that of nuclear extracts from late-pregnant rats. When enzyme II from normal tissue extracts was incubated for RNA synthesis with cyclic AMP, inhibition was frequently observed, but this occurred less often with nuclear extracts from the R-35 tumor. In some experiments with both normal and tumor tissue, cyclic AMP and cyclic GMP increased the apparent activity of nucleolar enzyme Ib and nucleoplasmic enzyme II, respectively. Nuclear extracts from both normal and tumor tissue contain proteins which bind radioactive cyclic AMP and cyclic GMP. Their patterns of binding were not identical. These results are consistent with the following hypothesis: altered binding by the tumor of cyclic nucleotides to putative nuclear 'r-gulatory' proteins (e.g. protein kinase subunits, or possibly other high affinity cyclic nucleotide-binding proteins unrelated to protein kinases) contributes to atative nuclear 'regularory' proteins (e.g. protein kinase subunits, or possibly other high affinity cyclic nucleotide-binding proteins unrelated to protein kinases) contributes to and may be responsible for some of the differences in response to cyclic nucleotides that were observed. It is possible that such defects occur in other tumors, or even represent a fundamental defect in all cancer cells. Several explanations for these results are discussed.