Messenger RNA competition in living Xenopus oocytes.

When calf lens crystallin mRNA and rabbit globin mRNA are competing for factors limiting protein synthesis in living Xenopus oocytes, no mRNA species is preferentially selected for translation. Differences in the intrinsic translational efficiency of the mRNA species exist, but the relative efficiencies are the same at high and low mRNA concentrations. mRNAs already being translated, in particular endogenous oocyte mRNAs, are less sensitive to competitive inhibition by injected mRNAs. As injected mRNAs gradually become incorporated into the protein-synthesizing machinery of the oocyte, they acquire the same status as the oocyte's own active mRNAs. Exogenous mRNAs this become endogenous mRNAs. These results, together with previous estmates of the translational efficiency of injected heterologous mRNA species, are compatible with the assumption that a large proportion of the endogenous mRNAs is not competing for the translational apparatus of the oocyte and, therefore, probably is present in the temporarily inactivated form.