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Articles

Amino Acid Synthesis in Photosynthesizing Spinach Cells ¹

EFFECTS OF AMMONIA ON POOL SIZES AND RATES OF LABELING FROM ¹⁴CO₂

Laboratory of Chemical Biodynamics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720

Isolated cells from leaves of Spinacia oleracea have been maintained in a state capable of high rates of photosynthetic CO₂ fixation for more than 60 hours. The incorporation of ¹⁴CO₂ under saturating CO₂ conditions into carbohydrates, carboxylic acids, and amino acids, and the effect of ammonia on this incorporation have been studied. Total incorporation, specific radioactivity, and pool size have been determined as a function of time for most of the protein amino acids and for -aminobutyric acid. The measurements of specific radio-activities and of the approaches to ¹⁴C "saturation" of some amino acids indicate the presence and relative sizes of metabolically active and passive pools of these amino acids.

Added ammonia decreased carbon fixation into carbohydrates and increased fixation into carboxylic acids and amino acids. Different amino acids were, however, affected in different and highly specific ways. Ammonia caused large stimulatory effects in incorporation of ¹⁴C into glutamine (a factor of 21), aspartate, asparagine, valine, alanine, arginine, and histidine. No effect or slight decreases were seen in glycine, serine, phenylalanine, and tyrosine labeling. In the case of glutamate, ¹⁴C labeling decreased, but specific radioactivity increased. The production of labeled -aminobutyric acid was virtually stopped by ammonia.

The results indicate that added ammonia stimulates the reactions mediated by pyruvate kinase and phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase, as seen with other plant systems. The data on the effects of added ammonia on total labeling, pool sizes, and specific radioactivities of several amino acids provides a number of indications about the intracellular sites of principal synthesis from carbon skeletons of these amino acids and the selective nature of effects of increased intracellular ammonia concentration on such synthesis.

¹ Supported by the Division of Biological Energy Conversion and Conservation, Office of Basic Energy Sciences and U.S. Department of Energy under Contract W-7405-ENG-48 and by the Danish Natural Science Research Council 511-15546 to POL.