Polysaccharide Composition of Leaves

Abstract

PLUM leaves (Prunus domestica) contain sufficient amounts of starch, cellulose, hemicellulose, and pectic substances to recommend them for studies of the biosynthesis and possible inter-relationships of these leaf polysaccharides and their monosaccharide precursors¹. Experiments involving photosynthesis by plum leaves in carbon dioxide labelled with carbon-14 and subsequent fractionation of the leaf polysaccharides revealed marked differences, both in the extent to which carbon-14 was incorporated into the different monosaccharides of each fraction, and also in the specific activities of each monosaccharide from different fractions^2,3. Further investigations could be facilitated by using leaves relatively richer than plum leaves in any one polysaccharide constituent. There is little information on this point, consequently a diversity of leaves has been examined for polysaccharides (Table 1).