Purification of a factor from Ehrlich ascites tumor cells specifically stimulating RNA polymerase II.

A factor stimulating RNA polymerase II from Ehrlich ascites tumor cells was purified. The final preparation appeared almost homogeneous on sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and had a molecular weight of 38 000. The endonuclease activity of about 10 mug of purified factor, if any was well below the 10(-5) mug equivalent of pancreatic deoxyribonuclease, indicating that the stimulation of RNA synthesis by this factor was not due to contaminating endonuclease. This factor specifically stimulated RNA polymerase II on native DNA as template and did not affect RNA polymerase I at all. The molecular size of RNA synthesized in the presence of this factor increased markedly compared with that synthetized by RNA polymerase II alone.