Chloroplasts isolated from Populus deltoides leaves were used to study age-dependent changes in the rate of cyclic photophosphorylation. Single leaves were used to measure CO(2) fixation by leaf discs, chlorophyll concentration, and ATP synthesis. The ability of chloroplasts to synthesize ATP diminished steadily from the time of full leaf expansion, regardless whether the results are expressed ...

Eight green leaf and eight red leaf lettuce varieties were grown in a greenhouse under control, receiving supplemental ultraviolet-A (UV-A) (320–400 nm) and supplemental UV-A plus ultraviolet-B (UV-B) (290–320 nm) radiation. The edible portion of the lettuce was frozen, lyophilized and extracted in 80% aqueous acetone for carotenoid and chlorophyll content determination by reverse-phase HPLC. L...

Leaf senescence, a type of programmed cell death (PCD) characterized by chlorophyll degradation, is important to plant growth and crop productivity. It emerges that autophagy is involved in chloroplast degradation during leaf senescence. However, the molecular mechanism(s) involved in the process is not well understood. In this study, the genetic and physiological characteristics of the rice rl...

The mangrove habitat exhibits many unique physical features, one of the most important of which is a salinity gradient. Photosynthetic rates, as measured by leaf stomatal conductance and leaf chlorophyll fluorescence induction, were tested as indicators of salinity stress in seedlings of the red mangrove, Rhizophora mangle, grown under five different salinity levels: 0, 15, 30, 45, and 60 parts...

Barley (Hordeum vulgare) leaf segments unroll and green when illuminated. Illuminated segments also have an increased capacity for RNA synthesis. Part of this increased RNA synthesis may be attributed to an increased RNA polymerase activity. In addition, following illumination there is an increased formation of polysomes.Analyses of RNA synthesized during illumination showed that the radioactiv...

Ascorbic acid (Asc) is a major antioxidant in plants that detoxifies reactive oxygen species (ROS) and maintains photosynthetic function. Expression of dehydroascorbate reductase (DHAR), responsible for regenerating Asc from an oxidized state, regulates the cellular Asc redox state, which in turn affects cell responsiveness and tolerance to environmental ROS. Because of its role in Asc recyclin...

It has been known since Herlitzka's work in 1912 that it is possible to prepare colloidal solutions of chlorophyll by grinding plant tissue. Lubimenko (1927) found that some leaves (Funkia and Aspidistra genuses) gave on extraction with water clear stable green solutions which contained all the chlorophyll of the original leaf in combination with a protein. Other leaves gave extracts which cont...

We have extended a conventional photosynthesis model to simulate field and laboratory measurements of chlorophyll fluorescence at the leaf scale. The fluorescence paramaterization is based on a close nonlinear relationship between the relative light saturation of photosynthesis and nonradiative energy dissipation in plants of different species. This relationship diverged only among examined dat...

The ambient mass spectrometry technique, desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (DESI-MS), is applied for the rapid identification and spatially resolved relative quantification of chlorophyll degradation products in complex senescent plant tissue matrixes. Polyfunctionalized nonfluorescent chlorophyll catabolites (NCCs), the "final" products of the chlorophyll degradation pathway...

The net photosynthetic rate, chlorophyll content, chlorophyll fluorescence and 820 nm transmission were investigated to explore the behavior of the photosynthetic apparatus, including light absorption, energy transformation and the photoactivities of photosystem II (PSII) and photosystem I (PSI) during senescence in the stay-green inbred line of maize (Zea mays) Q319 and the quick-leaf-senescen...