Printed in Great Britain. T6S EFFECT OF PROSTAGLAI~INS ON PROTEIN AND NDCLEIC ACID SYNTHESIS

THE prostaglandins are a family of hydroxy unsaturated C20 fatty acids which have been classified into an E and F aeries. Six different compounds have been isolated from various natural sources, including semen, vesicular glands, menstrual fluid, lung, brain, thymus, and iris (1). The prosta-glandins have a variety of effects on biological systems. Prostaglandin El, for example, inhibits the tone of vascular, respiratory, and reproductive smooth muscle, inhibits the mobilisation of fatty acids from adipose tissue in response to catecholaminas, and depresses the central nervous system (1,2). On the basis of present evidence it seems that the prostaglandine are not circulating hormones and that they may act intracellulary as co-enzymes or as a factor in cellular control mechanisms (1). If this.vere true, these agents could be ezpected to affect biosynthetic mechanisms. The present investigation vas designed to examine the effects of two prostaglandina, PGEl and PGFla, on protein and nucleic acid synthesis in a cell=free system derived from E. cola B cells. Materials and Methode Escherichia coli (strain B) were groen at 37o in a glucose enriched Difco broth (3) and harvested in the early log phase of growth. The cell