Gel Chromatographic Analysis of Nascent Globin Chains

A gel chromatographic analytical procedure using Bio-Gel A-0.5m in 6 m guanidine HCl-0.1 m 2-mercaptoethanol has been developed and standardized. The procedure permits the molecular weight of peptides in the size range of 2 to 146 amino acids in length to be established from the distribution coefficient of the peptide on the gel column. This procedure has been applied to an analysis of the size distribution of nascent peptides from rabbit reticulocyte ribosomes. These studies indicate that the size distribution of nascent peptides is nonuniform and that translation of hemoglobin messenger RNA molecules does not proceed at a constant rate in the reticulocyte.