Detection of the Free Amino-Acids of Plant Cells By Partition Chromatography

Abstract

ACCORDING to the classical and perhaps most generally accepted theory of protein synthesis in plants the amino-acids are intermediates in a process which proceeds after the pattern first outlined by Emil Fischer in the well-known polypeptide theory. On other views the amino-acids are regarded rather as the products of protein hydrolysis and as the form in which soluble nitrogen may be stored and eventually mobilized when synthesis proceeds¹. Whichever of these views is held, it is a commonplace that free amino-acids are widespread in plants and they are known to exist dissolved in the cell sap, to which they contribute part of the buffering properties which titration curves reveal. This is neither the place nor the occasion to give the number of free amino-acids which have been identified in plant materials.