Fig. 4.

Changes in antioxidant levels during the maturation of pea fruits. These were classified as immature (I), mature (M), or overmature (O) as described in Fig. 1. (A) Enzyme activities and metabolite contents of seeds and seedless pods. Abbreviations and other details are as described in Fig. 2. Values are means ±SE of 4–6 replicates from at least three series of plants grown independently. For each tissue, means denoted by the same letter do not significantly differ at P<0.05 based on Duncan's multiple range test. (B) Immunoblot analysis of cytosolic peroxiredoxin II (PrxIIc) in seeds and pods. Gels were loaded with 15 μg of protein per lane, and blots are representative of three to five gels loaded with extracts from different plants. (C) Expression (mRNA level and protein) of γ-glutamylcysteine synthetase (γECS) in seeds. The γECS mRNA levels were normalized with actin as the internal reference gene and were expressed relative to those of immature seeds, which were arbitrarily given a value of 1. Values represent means ±SE of 3–4 RNA extractions from seeds of at least two series of plants grown independently. For immunoblots, gels were loaded with 50 μg of protein per lane. The blot shown in (C) is representative of three independent blots. For (B) and (C), the apparent molecular mass (kDa) of the proteins is indicated on the right.