Polyribosomes of growing bacteria.

A method of extracting polyribosomes has been developed which uses lysozyme on bacteria in the exponential phase of growth. This procedure recovers more than 80 percent of the total ribonucleic acid and nearly all of the soluble protein. Analysis of the lysate on sucrose gradients shows that 80 to 90 percent of the ribosomes sediment with the polysome fractions, indicating little or no degradation. The method has been applied to both a Gram-positive and a Gram-negative organism under various growth conditions and has proved uniformly successful.