Isolation and Characterization of Complementary Deoxyribonucleic Acid Complementary to the Highly Abundant Class of Poly(adenylic acid)-Containing Ribonucleic Acid from Oocytes of Drosophila Melanogaster

The complementary deoxyribonucleic acid (cDNA) complementary to the highly abundant class of poly (adenylic acid)-containing ribonucleic acid [poly(A+) RNA] from Drosophila malanogaster oocytes has been isolated and characterized. Analysis of the kinetics of hybridization of this cDNA (cDNA_ha) to total poly(A+) RNA of oocytes indicates this class contains ~86 different sequences. Hybridization kinetics of cDNA_ha annealed to poly(A+) RNA from 19-h-old embryos is essentially the same as that of oocyte poly(A+) RNA. This suggests the highly abundant class of poly(A+) RNA persists in approximately the same frequency through early development. Analysis of the hybridization of cDNA_ha to genomic DNA suggests that the highly abundant poly(A+) RNA from oocytes is not enriched for transcripts from repetitive sequences of the genome.