The effect of nitrate, nitrite, and ammonia on photosynthesis by Acetabularia chloroplast preparations compared with spinach chloroplasts and whole cells of Acetabularia and Dunaliella

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Abstract

The effects of nitrate, nitrite, and ammonia were compared using chloroplasts prepared from Acetabularia mediterranea and spinach and intact cells of Acetabularia and Dunaliella tertiolecta. Nitrate was without effect in all systems. Spinach chloroplasts were strongly inhibited by nitrite at 5 mM, Acetabularia cells were somewhat inhibited, but Dunaliella cells and chloroplast preparations from Acetabularia were unaffected. Ammonia at 5 mM inhibited spinach and Acetabularia chloroplasts, but its effect on the other systems was slight. It decreased oxygen production in chloroplasts and Dunaliella cells, but did not affect carbon dioxide fixation.These results are interpreted on the basis of varying rates of uptake, metabolism, and detoxification of the ions in different preparations. Whole cells and Acetabularia chloroplast preparations make amino acids, but spinach chloroplasts do not. This accounts for the greater sensitivity of the latter, and for the decreased oxygen production in the presence of ammonia in whole cells, which is presumably caused by increased respiration accompanying amino acid formation. The insensitivity of the Acetabularia chloroplast preparation is attributed to the properties of the membrane, apparently derived from tonoplast fragments, which surrounded the small cytoplasmic droplets present in these preparations.

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