POLYAMINE METABOLISM IN DEVELOPING SOMATIC EMBRYOS IN TISSUE CULTURES OF PICEA ABIES

Polyamines are small organic polycations present in all living cells, which bind to negatively charged macromolecules like nucleic acids, cell wall polysacharides, phospholipids and proteins.
They may also conjugate with low molecular weight compounds like hydroxy cinnamic acids (Martin-Tanguy et al. 1982) and bind to proteins covalently via transglutaminase activity (Serafini-Fracassini 1988).

Polyamines have a role as growth regulators or as second messengers (Flores et al. 1988). Free, conjugated and bound polyamines have been found to correlate with cell division and somatic embryogenesis and organogenesis in vitro and in vivo (Galston and Kaur-Sawhney 1987).

In this study the incorporation of ¹⁴C-putrescine into different fractions (polyamine, protein, cell wall debris) in embryogenic and non-embryogenic tissues of Norway spruce were investigated.
Putrescine was fed to cultured cells at three stages of somatic embryo development in embryogenic tissue growing in abscisic acid (ABA) containing medium.

III International Symposium on In Vitro Culture and Horticultural Breeding

A. Santanen, L. Simola

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1997.447.12