Biosynthesis and composition of histones in Novikoff hepatoma nuclei and nucleoli.

Histones were prepared from isolated nuclei and nucleoli of the Novikoff ascitic hepatoma at several time points after the injection of L-lysine uniformly labeled with C(14) into tumor-bearing rats. Amino acid analysis and starch-gel electrophoresis failed to reveal any differences between the nuclear and nucleolar histones, although both fractions were more acidic in composition than calf thymus histones. However, the nucleolar histones were a metabolically distinct fraction, and their rate of synthesis was approximately twice that of the total nuclear histones.