Fat Metabolism in Higher Plants

Abstract

Intact spinach and barley chloroplast normally incorporate ¹⁴C-acetate into palmitate and oleate as the major ¹⁴C fatty acids. Addition of nitrite markedly altered the relative patterns of the products with the appearance of stearate, a drop in oleate, but no marked change in palmitate. Arsenite greatly increased appearance of palmitate with a concomitant decrease in the C₁₈ fatty acids. The effect of other anions was also examined. Spinach and barley plants grown under different nitrogen nutritional conditions also served as sources of chloroplasts, and their activities suggest a correlation between nitrite reductase activity and stearate accumulation.