Studies on the metabolism of valerate-1-C14 by uredospores of wheat stem rust

When uredospores of Puccinia graminis var. tritici race 15B were shaken in a medium containing M/30 phosphate buffer, pH 6.2, and valerate-1-C14, 97% of the radioactivity was removed from the solution in a period of 3 hours. Fifty-five per cent of the carbon-14 was released as carbon dioxide, and 42% was incorporated into the spores. Carbon-14 was found in many cellular components but the water-soluble fraction accounted for 48% of the tracer in the spores. About two thirds of the water-soluble carbon-14 was in a fraction containing amino acids, amides, and peptides, with glutamic acid, glutamine, and γ-aminobutyric acid being highly radioactive. Carbon-5 of glutamic acid and carbon-1 of γ-aminobutyric acid were particularly radioactive. In addition carbon-1 of glutamic acid was appreciably radioactive. The results are consistent with the view that γ-aminobutyric acid was formed by decarboxylation of glutamic acid and that glutamic acid became labelled as a result of β-oxidation of the valerate-1-C14 to yield acetate-1-C14 which in turn was metabolized by the tricarboxylic acid cycle.

[Host-parasite metabolic relationship between puccinia graminis var. tritici and triticum vulgare (wheat) : I. Uptake of amino acids from the host]

Rust infected wheat plants were incubated with different (14C)-labelled amino acids. Uredospores that were formed during the incubation contained (14)C-activity. By analysis of these spores it was investigated whether the parasitic mycelium of Puccinia graminis takes amino acids from the host. It could be demonstrated that the applicated amino acids were taken up directly from the wheat leaf. The carbon sceletons of applicated lysine and arginine showed only little randomization of (14)C-activity. Glutamic acid, alanine and glycine isolated from uredospore protein showed a very strong alteration of the original label. The pools of free amino acids in the host and the parasite are in isotope equilibrium. This demonstrates, that synthesis of amino acids in the mycelium is quantitatively not important. By following the kinetics of incorporation of an amino acid it could be demonstrated that the amino acids enter the parasite as free amino acids and not in the form of proteins.

[An analysis of the quantitative importance of some metabolic pathways in uredopores of Puccinia graminis var. tritici]

In order to investigate the metabolism of germinating uredopores of Puccinia graminis, spores were incubated at different stages of germination with (14)C-valerate-1 for short times (5 or 10 min). Incorporation of the labelled substance per unit of time was nearly constant during the experiment, which lasted for 510 min. The uptake of valeric acid was not influenced by endogenous metabolism. Most of the incorporated radioactivity was soluble in 40% ethanol and water. The part of the activity taken up that was incorporated into insoluble compounds decreased during germination. Distribution of radioactivity in some important metabolites such as glutamic acid, aspartic acid, citric acid, malic acid, carbohydrates and alanine was determined in terms of the per cent of incorporated radioactivity. Radioactivity of these compounds accounted for 70% of the radioactivity of the raw extract. Most of the radioactivity of the raw extract was found in glutamic acid and glutamine.The endogenous supply of acetyl CoA decreased gradually, and thereby turnover rates of citric acid and glutamic acid decreased, too. The specific activity of acetyl CoA (formed by β-oxidation of valeric acid) increased since the rate of supply of radioactive acetyl CoA was constant. Thereby the specific activities of the different pools increased, as long as pool sizes were constant.Pool sizes did not change during tracer application, indicating steady state conditions during the experiments. During germination the citric acid pool and the aspartic acid pool stayed practically constant. The glutamic acid pool decreased and the malic acid pool increased. Turnover rates of glutamic acid including glutamine and aspartic acid including asparagine were very high.Quantitatively the TCA cycle is more important than the glyoxalate cycle. During germination synthesis of glutamic acid decreased and synthesis of carbohydrates and aspartic acid increased, indicating that more iso-citrate was split by isocitratlyase.Large differences in the rates of synthesis of different amino acids were noticed. Only glutamic acid, aspartic acid and alanine were synthesized in larger amounts. On the other hand the amount of synthesis of serine and threonine was extremely low and insufficient for a net synthesis of proteins. The rate of protein synthesis was investigated by studying incorporation of free glutamic acid into bound glutamic acid. Only a very small part of the synthesized free glutamic acid was bound. The rate of protein synthesis decreased during germination.

UTILIZATION OF LABELLED SUBSTRATES BY THE MYCELIUM AND UREDOSPORES OF FLAX RUST

The uredospores and mycelium of flax rust have been shown to be capable of utilizing external sources of carbohydrates and amino acids in varying degrees. A rate study of the assimilation of uniformly labelled glucose indicated that a metabolic pool consisting of about 8% of the permanent cell carbon probably accounts for a large part of the exogenous respiration, but that a more complex model is required to explain the relatively high activity of the respired carbon dioxide in the early stages of the experiment. It was also found that aureomycin had little effect on the utilization of the various compounds, whereas actidione can markedly reduce respiratory activity.