Amino-Acid Activation in Tissues of Early Embryos

Abstract

THE work of Hoagland, Zamecnik and many others^1–4 has now clearly established that activation of the carboxyl groups of amino-acids occurs as one of the initial steps before they are incorporated into proteins during protein synthesis. The activation reaction was demonstrated by these workers, in protein-synthesizing components of a variety of mammalian tissues. Recently amino-acid activation has also been shown to occur in sea-urchin eggs; but I have seen no reports to date of any investigations on tissues of developing embryos.