Occurrence of Indole Compounds containing Phosphorus in Etiolated Pea Seedlings

Abstract

IN the course of paper chromatographic identification of compounds containing phosphorus-32 in different parts of plants the presence of phosphorus compounds with an indole skeleton seemed probable. To prove this, 10-day-old etiolated pea seedlings were kept for 24 h in the dark, in Knop's solution containing phosphorus-32 as KH₂PO₄ (the activity was 5 µc./ml.), and an alcoholic extract was chromatographed; on the start points of the one- and two-dimensional chromatograms an extract corresponding to 36 g fresh material was dropped. Developing was carried out first in isopropanol/ammonia/water, 10 : 1: 1, and secondly in butanol/acetic acid/water, 4 : 1: 5 solvent. The chromatograms were sprayed with Salkowski and Ehrlich reagent and exposed on X-ray film for 8 days. On the chromatograms prepared from the extract of epicotyls, five (Fig. 1), and on those prepared from the extract of roots, six, indole-positive spots appeared (Fig. 2) : in both cases two of them proved to be radioactive.