Metabolism of cytokinins by tissue culture lines of oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) producing normal and abnormal flowering palms

The metabolism of cytokinins in tissue cultures of two oil palm clones previously known to regenerate palms ultimately manifesting normal and abnormal flowering was studied using radiolabeled benzyladenine and isopentenyladenosine, with particular regard to the kinetics of formation of the cytokinin 9-glucoside. Labeled products were separated by high performance liquid chromatography and identified by comparison of retention times with authentic cytokinin standards run immediately before or after the experimental sample. Using benzyladenine, which is insensitive to cytokinin oxidase, ribotide appeared rapidly and then declined. 6-Benzylaminopurine (BA) 9-glucoside quickly became the major soluble product with some formation of riboside. No other ethanol-soluble products were found. Over an incubation period of 24 h up to 30% of label appeared in the ethanol-insoluble fraction. The uptake of label was consistently faster in the normal than the abnormal clone. Dose-rate and time course experiments produced an in vivo asymptotic dose-response curve for the accumulation of BA 9-glucoside analogous to a Michaelis-Menten first-order reaction with a "V-max" of 3.5 nmol.g(-1).h(-1) (on a fresh weight basis) and a "K-m" of 0.12 mM. There were no differences between clones in the rate of synthesis. Using isopentenyladenosine, which is susceptible to cytokinin oxidase and cannot be glucosylated without prior deribosylation, a complex pattern of metabolism was seen, with much slower production of 9-glucoside. A number of transient unidentified compounds were seen, together with adenosine and adenine. Comparison of normal and abnormal flowering clones showed striking differences in the kinetics of production of a compound thought to be [9R]Z and in a transient compound eluting at 22 min which accounted for 42% of the radioactivity after a 7-h incubation in the abnormal line. By 17 h there was no difference between normal and abnormal lines in the radioactivity in this compound. Cytokinin uptake was slower in the abnormal than in the normal flowering clone.