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. 1966 May;41(5):755–759. doi: 10.1104/pp.41.5.755

Dark CO2 Fixation and its Role in the Growth of Plant Tissue

Walter E Splittstoesser 1
PMCID: PMC1086419  PMID: 16656316

Abstract

Experiments were designed to determine the significance of dark CO2 fixation in excised maize roots, carrot slices and excised tomato roots grown in tissue culture. Bicarbonate-14C was used to determine the pathway and amounts of CO2 fixation, while leucine-14C was used to estimate protein synthesis in tissues aerated with various levels of CO2.

Organic acids were labeled from bicarbonate-14C, with malate being the major labeled acid. Only glutamate and aspartate were labeled in the amino acid fraction and these 2 amino acids comprised over 90% of the 14C label in the ethanol-water insoluble residue.

Studies with leucine-14C as an indicator of protein synthesis in carrot slices and tomato roots showed that those tissues aerated with air incorporated 33% more leucine-14C into protein than those aerated with CO2-free air. Growth of excised tomato roots aerated with air was 50% more than growth of tissue aerated with CO2-free air. These studies are consistent with the suggestion that dark fixation of CO2 is involved in the growth of plant tissues.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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