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. 1969 Sep;44(9):1310-1315, 1317, 1319-1320. doi: 10.1104/pp.44.9.1310

Photosynthetic Studies on a Pea-mutant Deficient in Chlorophyll

H R Highkin a,2, N K Boardman a, D J Goodchild a
PMCID: PMC396261  PMID: 16657204

Abstract

A chlorophyll-deficient mutant of pea (Pisum sativum) was found as a spontaneous mutation of the variety Greenfeast. Total chlorophyll of the mutant leaves was about one-half that of normal pea leaves per mg dry weight, and the ratio of chl a:chl b ranged from 10 to 18, compared with 3 for normal pea. In each generation the mutant plants gave rise to normal and mutant plants and lethal plants with yellow leaves.

For a normal pea plant, CO2 uptake was saturated at about 60,000 lux, whereas with mutant leaves, the rate of CO2 uptake was still increasing at 113,000 lux. At 113,000 lux the mutant and normal leaves showed similar rates of CO2 fixation per unit area of leaf surface, but on a chlorophyll basis the mutant leaves were twice as active. Hill reaction measurements on isolated chloroplasts also showed that the mutant chloroplasts were saturated at higher intensities than the normal, and that the activity of the mutant was at least double that of the normal on a chlorophyll basis.

It is suggested that the photosynthetic units of the mutant chloroplasts contain about half the number of chlorophyll molecules as compared to the normal photosynthetic units.

Electron microscopy of leaf sections of normal and mutant leaves showed that the mutant chloroplasts contain fewer lamellae per chloroplast and fewer lamellae per granum. The lethal chloroplasts, which were virtually devoid of chlorophyll, were characterized by an absence of grana.

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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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