Occurrence of an Inhibitor of Tissue-Type Plasminogen Activator in Seeds and in Vitro Cultures of Erythrina caffra Thunb.

The level of an inhibitor of tissue-type plasminogen activator (t-PA) increased slowly during the early developmental stage of seeds of Erythrina caffra Thunb. Thereafter, the inhibitor increased exponentially until the seeds reached maturity. At maturity, the t-PA inhibitor levels in the cotyledons were 38 times higher than the levels at the onset of seed development. The t-PA inhibitor accumulated at a faster rate than the storage proteins, which reached a concentration 15 times higher than the protein concentration at the onset of seed development. During the imbibition and germination process, the t-PA inhibitor decreased gradually. The inhibitor kept on decreasing during the growth of the seedlings until the 10th day after imbibition, when it leveled off at 4.1% of that of the initial inhibitor concentration. The inhibitor remained at this level until the cotyledons were shed at day 22. The total protein in the cotyledons decreased at a slower rate than the inhibitor and reached a minimum concentration at day 20 of 3.6% of the initial protein concentration in the cotyledons. Callus cultures of root, shoot, leaf, and cotyledonary tissue was established and maintained on Murashige-Skoog medium supplemented with 3% sucrose, 10 micromolar benzyladenine, and 5 micromolar 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid. A shoot cell suspension culture was established on Murashige-Skoog medium supplemented with 3% sucrose, 1 micromolar benzyladenine, and 0.5 micromolar 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (pH 5.7) and shaken at 60 revolutions per minute. The level of t-PA inhibitor in root, shoot, leaf, and cotyledonary callus was substantially lower than in the corresponding intact tissue. The t-PA inhibitor levels in the linear growth phase was higher than in the lag or stationary growth phases of the cell suspension culture. A hydrolysate of the cell walls of tomato and E. caffra Thunb, as well as polyamines and organic acids, did not increase the concentration of t-PA inhibitor in suspension cultures or intact leaf tissue of E. caffra. The t-PA inhibitor levels of suspension cultures were increased by Na(2)SO(4) but not by I-cysteine in the nutrient medium.