Tyrosine Incorporation into the Rabbit Retina

Recent work has cast doubt on the validity of results obtained from glutaraldehyde-fixed material in radioautography. Peters and Ashley (3) have demonstrated that glutaraldehyde binds free leucine directly onto cells of rat liver. They indicate that this bound leucine might be confused with that incorporated by protein synthesis. As an alternative fixative for radioautography, they recommend freshly prepared formaldehyde which binds considerably less free leucine. This paper reports the localization of the more active sites of protein synthesis in the rabbit retina as shown by radioautography. Preliminary work showed that glutaraldehyde is superior as a retinal fixative to formaldehyde, and so, rather than abandon a useful fixative, we examined the magnitude of its associated artefact. In addition, model experiments were carried out on solutions of rabbit albumin.