The assembly of ribosomal subunits starting from free ribosomal RNA and protein of Dictyostelium discoideum was induced in vitro in the presence of several oligoribonucleotides complementary to defined sequences of ribosomal RNA. The reconstituted particles had a full complement of ribosomal proteins, but did not function in an in vitro protein synthesis system and were disassembled following interaction with mRNA. The same result was obtained in vivo by fusing the oligodeossiribonucleotides coding for the selected oligoribonucleotides to the promoter of the gene coding for contact site A protein. This gene is expressed only in the first part of development. Transfected growing cells, transferred in developing buffer in the presence of pulses of cAMP, accumulated significant amounts of the oligoribonucleotides. When retransferred to the growth medium, they grew progressively more slowly, until their doubling time doubled, apparently due to the availability of a limiting amount of functional ribosomes. To avoid disassembly of misassembled subunits (G. Mangiarotti et al., 1997, J. Biol. Chem. 272, 27818–27822), two oligoribonucleotides complementary to sequences present at the 5′ ends of pre-17S and pre-26S RNAs were also induced to accumulate during early development with the same technique. When transfected cells were retransferred to the growth medium, their rate of growth declined rapidly to zero and cells died, apparently because they were unable to disassemble misassembled ribosomal subunits and avoid their entry into polyribosomes. This technique to perturb protein synthesis, arrest cell growth, and cause cell suicide will be tested in abnormally growing animal cells.