Phytochrome Pelletability Induced by Irradiation in Vivo: MIXING EXPERIMENTS

Samples of irradiated and control Avena sativa shoot tissue were homogenized together to determine whether, during homogenization phytochrome from irradiated tissue can bind to the particulate material simultaneously extracted from the control tissue. The level of phytochrome pelletability for such mixed tissue homogenizations is equal to: (a) the values obtained when the extracts from separate homogenizations of the two batches of tissue are mixed and then centrifuged; and (b) the arithmetic mean of the values obtained when the two batches of tissue are separately homogenized and separately tested for pelletability. This relationship is observed regardless of the ratio of control to irradiated tissue over the range from 4:6 to 9:1. These data indicate that the observed limit to the level of pelletability inducible in irradiated tissue (about 60%) does not result from a limited number of nonspecific particulate binding sites to which in vivo-modified phytochrome molecules have access at, or after, the moment of cell disruption. The possibility that pelletability may represent preservation of an association established in vivo is discussed.