Phosphorylation as a Possible Factor in the Pasteur Effect in Plants

Abstract

AFTER the discovery of the participation of phosphate in glycolysis, suggestions that the Pasteur effect might be explicable in terms of the different rates of aerobic and anaerobic phosphorylation were made by Lennerstrand¹, Turner² and especially by Johnson³. In modern terms, the conservation of carbon by oxygen, which has been defined as the Pasteur effect, could be due to oxidative phosphorylation lowering the concentration of inorganic phosphate, or the ratio of adenosine di- to adenosine tri-phosphate, to levels which would limit the rate of glycolysis. The development of methods for measuring the concentration of these substances enables investigation of this hypothesis. The work to date has been restricted to measurements in the developing pea seed, in which the concentration of the phosphate esters is relatively high, and for which satisfactory analytical methods have been developed.