Comparative studies on the activity of carboxylases and other enzymes in relation to the new pathway of photosynthetic carbon dioxide fixation in tropical grasses

Abstract

1. The activity per unit of chlorophyll of certain carboxylases, and of other enzymes involved in photosynthesis, was determined in leaf extracts of the tropical grasses, sugar-cane, maize and sorghum, and compared with the activities for wheat, oat and silver-beet. Maximum rates of photosynthetic carbon dioxide uptake were also measured for comparison with enzyme activities. 2. Phosphopyruvate carboxylase activity was about 60 times greater in the tropical grasses than in wheat, oat and silver-beet and was severalfold higher than the rates of photosynthetic carbon dioxide uptake. Most of the enzyme was located in the chloroplast fraction of cell extracts. 3. Phosphopyruvate carboxylase was apparently the major photosynthetic carbon dioxide-fixing enzyme in the tropical grasses, although malic enzyme may contribute to a lesser extent. 4. Tropical grasses contained less than one-tenth of the ribulose diphosphate carboxylase activity present in wheat, oat and silver-beet. For the tropical grasses this activity, determined with a saturating concentration of bicarbonate, was approx. 10% of the rate of photosynthesis. 5. The fraction-1 protein content of leaf extracts paralleled the ribulose diphosphate carboxylase activity. 6. In contrast, the activity of several other enzymes of the Calvin cycle was similar in the different species examined.