Effect of Inorganic Nitrogen on Photorespiration of Pea Leaves

완두잎의 광호흡에 미치는 무기질소의 영향

Leaf discs isolated from the pea seedling grown in nutrient solution containing 5mM ammonia or nitrate exhibited a half level of photorespiration as compared with the nitrogen free control. The manifestation of the ammonia effect appeared somewhat earlier than that of nitrate effect, but this difference subsided as the culture periods was extended. The total amount of ${CO}_2$ fixed by leaves from nitrogen-supplemented seedlings showed approximately 1.5 fold increase over the control with the ammonia effect being manifested earlier than the nitrate effect. The activities of peroxisomal serine: glyoxylate aminotransferase were always higher with ammonia than nitrate, the two types of nitrogen source, however, had similar effect on conversion rate of glyoxylate into glycine. These results indicate that exogenous ammonia does not act directly as an effector of this aminotransferase in vivo. But changes in the level of the pool size of glycine and serine, both of which are the intermediates of photorespiratory process, suggest that exogenous ammonia inhibit the transformation of serine from glycine metabolically.