Procollagen complementary DNA, a probe for messenger RNA purification and the number of type I collagen genes.

Type I procollagen mRNAs were separated from contaminating low-abundance messenger and nuclear RNAs by chromatography over Sepharose 4B in 0.65 M NaCl at room temperature. All of 27S rRNA and four-fifths of procollagen mRNAs bind to Sepharose under these conditions, while 18S rRNA and about three-fourths of other poly(A)-containing RNAs do not bind. AMV reverse transcriptase was used to prepare complementary DNA to procollagen mRNA at each purification step. Hybridization studies, in RNA excess, were carried out to establish the enrichment at each step both with respect to total RNA and to poly(A)-containing RNA. While "purified" procollagen mRNA preparations still consist of about 50% 27S rRNA, over 80% of cDNA prepared from it back hybridizes to its template at a log of cr0t1/2 of -1.9. This type I procollagen cDNA hybridizes in DNA excess to DNA isolated from chicken erythrocytes and from embryonic chick calvaria at a log c0t1/2 of 3.1, demonstrating that procollagen cDNA is complementary to unique gene sequences in both tissues and that procollagen genes are not reiterated.