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. 1982 Feb;69(2):345–348. doi: 10.1104/pp.69.2.345

Sources of Ammonium in Oat Leaves Treated with Tabtoxin or Methionine Sulfoximine 1

Thomas A Frantz 1,2,3,2, David M Peterson 1,2,3, Richard D Durbin 1,2,3
PMCID: PMC426207  PMID: 16662206

Abstract

Excised 7-day-old oat (Avena sativa L. cv. Jaycee) leaves were incubated in media containing 7.1 millimolar KNO3 and 0.15 millimolar tabtoxin or 1 millimolar methionine sulfoximine (MSO) to investigate the sources of the observed ammonium accumulated. Tabtoxin and MSO are known inhibitors of glutamine synthetase, the first enzyme in the primary pathway of ammonium assimilation. During a 4- to 6-hour incubation, there was little net change in protein or total amino acid concentration. Alanine, aspartate/asparagine, and glutamate/glutamine decreased markedly under these treatments, whereas several other amino acids increased. Exogenous 15N from K15NO3 was taken up and incorporated into the nitrate and ammonium fractions of leaves treated with tabtoxin or MSO. This result and the high in vitro activities of nitrate reductase indicated that reduction of nitrate was one source of the accumulated ammonium. Leaves incubated under 2% O2 to reduce photorespiration accumulated only about 13% as much ammonium as did those under normal atmospheres. We conclude that most of the tabtoxin- or MSO-induced ammonium came from photo-respiration, and the remainder was from nitrate reduction.

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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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