Effect of cadmium on polyribosome structure and function in mouse liver

Summary Cadmium chloride injected to mice (20 moles/kg) provokes in the livers a degradation of polyribosomes and diminishes their protein synthetic ability measured in vitro. CdCl₂ added in a final concentrations between 30 and 100 M to the protein synthetic cell-free system derived from livers of control mice inhibits its activity.Acknowledgments. We are grateful to Prof. P. Sokoli for helpful discussion. The work was supported by Wellcome Trust grant and by a gift of chemicals from Kemika, Zagreb. We are grateful to both these organizations.