Oxaloacetate as the Hill Oxidant in Mesophyll Cells of Plants Possessing the C 4 -Dicarboxylic Acid Cycle of Leaf Photosynthesis

Abstract

Isolated mesophyll cells from leaves of plants that use the C(4) dicarboxylic acid pathway of CO(2) fixation have been used to demonstrate that oxaloacetic acid reduction to malic acid is coupled to the photochemical evolution of oxygen through the presumed production of NADPH. The major acid-stable product of light-dependent CO(2) fixation is shown to be malic acid. In the presence of phosphoenolpyruvate and bicarbonate the stoichiometry of CO(2) fixation into acid-stable products to O(2) evolution is shown to be near 1.0. Thus oxaloacetic acid acts directly as the Hill oxidant in mesophyll cell chloroplasts. The experiments are taken as a firm demonstration that the C(4) dicarboxylic acid cycle of photosynthesis is the major pathway for the fixation of CO(2) in mesophyll cells of plants having this pathway.