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Environmental and Stress Physiology

Biochemical Studies of Paraquat-Tolerant Mutants of the Fern Ceratopteris richardii¹

Department of Botany, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996-0011

Enzymes and metabolites associated with mitigation of paraquat toxicity were compared in two paraquat-tolerant mutants and a sensitive wild-type strain of the fern Ceratopteris richardii Brongn. In 21-day-old gametophytes, the specific activities of superoxide dismutase, catalase, peroxidase, glutathione reductase, dehydroascorbate reductase, and ascorbate peroxidase showed no differences that would explain mutant tolerance. Constitutive levels of ascorbate and glutathione also did not differ significantly in the three strains. An experiment testing the inducibility of paraquat tolerance revealed no change in the dose response of mutant or wild type gametophytes after exposure to sublethal concentrations of the herbicide. Uptake of paraquat by whole gametophytes was also equivalent in mutants and wild type. These data suggest that the physiological basis for tolerance in these mutants, unlike several other tolerant biotypes reported, does not lie in the oxygen radical scavenging system, in an inducible stress response, or in a block to whole-plant uptake.