Mesembryarnhemnam crystafiinm, a halophilic, inducible Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) species, was grown at NaCI concentrations of 20 and 400 milimlar in the rooting medium. Plants from the low salinity treatment showed exclusively C3-photosynthetic net CO2 fixation, whereas plants exposed to the high salinity level exhibited net CO2 dark fixation involving CAM. Mesophyll protoplasts, isolated from both tissues, were gently ruptured, and the intracelular localization of enzymes was studied following differential centrifugation and Percoll density gradient centrifugation of protoplast extracts. Both centrifugation techniques resulted in the separation of intact chloroplasts, with up to 90% yield, from other organelles and the nonparticulate fraction of cels. Enzymes were identified by determination of activity and by sodium dodecyl sulfate gel electrophoresis of enzyme protein.Experiments established the extraorganelar (cytoplasmic) location of phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase, enolase, phosphoglyceromutase, and NADP-malic enzyme; the mitochondrial location of NAD-malic enzyme; and the chloroplastic location of pyruvate, Pi dikinase. NAD-glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, phosphohexose isomerase, and phosphoglycerate kinase were associated with both cytoplasm and chloroplasts.NADP-dependent malate dehydrogenase activity was found in both the chloroplastic and extrachloroplastic fractions; the activity in the chloroplast showed an optimum at pH 8.0 and was dependent upon preincubation of enzyme with dithiothreitol. The extrachloroplastic activity showed an optimum at pH 6.5 and was independent ofpretreatment with dithiothreitol. In the paper presented here, the intracellular distribution of 16 enzymes was studied in the halophilic, inducible CAM plant Mesembryanthemum crystallinum (26). Leaves of M. crystallinum are apparently low in phenolic compounds, and high extractable activities of several enzymes have been reported for this species (9). Experimental plants were manipulated to show either exclusively C3-photosynthetic net CO2 fixation during the light (growth at low salinity levels in the rooting medium) or to exhibit nocturnal net CO2 uptake involving CAM (growth at high salinity levels). Mesophyll extracts with almost all chloroplasts intact were routinely obtained from plants of both salinity treatments by gentle rupture of enzymically isolated protoplasts. Two techniques, differential centrifugation and Percoll density gradient centrifugation, were used to study the intracellular localization of enzymes. Chloroplast integrity was preserved during these procedures, and the two methods gave identical results.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Growth