ACTIVITY AND RELATIVE MOBILITY OF PEROXIDASE ISOENZYMES IN GENOTROPHS AND GENOTYPES OF FLAX (LINUM USITATISSIMUM L.)

Abstract

Acrylamide gel electrophoresis was used to separate anionic peroxidase isoenzymes in genotypes and genotrophs of flax. Activities and relative mobilities were measured directly from the separations on the gels.The effects of growth of one flax genotype in soil supplemented by either nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (NPK) or nitrogen and potassium (NK) on subsequent generations of its progeny produced by complete selfing were studied. Both activity and relative mobility of anionic peroxidase isoenzymes displayed effects of fertilizer treatments applied in previous generations. NPK increased the relative mobility of all isoenzymes, while depressing the activity of at least three of them. Successive generations of growth in NPK produced approximately linear increases in relative mobility. Such environmentally induced heritable changes were detectable five generations later.Two other flax genotypes were crossed, and relative mobility and activity of anionic peroxidase isoenzymes were examined in both parents and F2 progeny. Between parents, there were differences in relative mobility for two of the four isoenzymes; their F2 hybrids showed intermediate mobility for these particular isoenzymes. There were no differences between reciprocal F2 hybrids for mobility or activity of any isoenzyme. The parents differed in activity in all four isoenzymes; the F2 hybrids displayed dominance towards the lower activity parent for each of the isoenzymes.Total anionic isoenzyme activity was highly correlated with gross peroxidase activity measured prior to electrophoretic separation.