Fertilization of sea urchin eggs results in a large increase in the rate of protein synthesis which is mediated by the translation of stored maternal mRNA. The masked message hypothesis suggests that messenger ribonucleoprotein particles (mRNPs) from unfertilized eggs are translationally inactive and that fertilization results in alterations of the mRNPs such that they become translationaHy active. Previous workers have isolated egg mRNPs by sucrose gradient centrifugation and have assayed their translational activity in heterologous cell-free systems. The conflicting results they obtained are probably due to the sensitivity of mRNPs to artifactual activation and inactivation. Previously, we demonstrated that unfractionated mRNPs in a sea urchin cell-free translation system were translationally inactive. Now, using large-pore gel filtration chromatography, we partially purified egg mRNPs while retaining their translationally repressed state. Polysomal mRNPs from fertilized eggs isolated under the same conditions were translationally active. The changes in the pattern of proteins synthesized by fractionated unfertilized and fertilized mRNPs in vitro were similar to those changes observed in vivo. Treatment of egg mRNPs with buffers containing high salt and EDTA, followed by rechromatography, resulted in the activation of the mRNPs and the release of an inhibitor of translation from the mRNPs. Analysis of the inhibitory fraction on one-dimensional sodium dodecyl sulfate gels indicated that this fraction contains a complex set of proteins, several of which were released from high-salt-EDTA-activated mRNPs and not from inactive low-salt control mRNPs. One of the released proteins may be responsible for the repression of egg mRNPs in vitro and be involved in the unmasking of mRNPs at fertilization.One of the major changes that occurs upon activation of a variety of cell types is an increase in the overall rate of protein synthesis. This increase is largely mediated by the regulation, at the translational level, of mRNAs stored in these quiescent cells. Examples of this type of translational control include the serum stimulation of resting fibroblasts, fertilization of various invertebrate and vertebrate oocytes, and the activation of T lymphocytes (30; for reviews, see references 18 and 26).It appears that many of the basic mechanisms that control the activation of protein synthesis in these various cell types occur in an amplified or exaggerated form after fertilization of sea urchin eggs. The increase in intracellular calcium and pH that follows fertilization results in the mobilization of maternal mRNAs into polysomes (10,14,36). These mRNAs were synthesized during oogenesis and stored in the unfertilized egg as messenger ribonucleoprotein particles (mRNPs). The specific regulatory pathways by which changes in intracellular ion concentrations result in the mobilization of these mRNPs into polysomes are not yet known.The increase in the rate of protein synthesis after fertilization is mainly due to an increase in t...