Introduction Materials & Methods Results Discussion Literature Cited
Ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase (Rubisco) is an enzyme found in leaf plant tissue that functions to capture and fix carbon in the photosynthetic pathway. This enzyme also has the unique ability to fix oxygen as an alternative to carbon dioxide, thus making it an essential protein in the production of glucose. This experiment was performed in order to determine if Rubisco levels varied between leaves of organic or inorganic plants. According to previous studies, there was a distinct correlation between Rubisco levels of organic plants compared to their inorganic complement; inorganic plants illustrated higher levels of Rubisco. In this study, Allium fistulosum (green onion) and Lactuca sativa (romaine lettuce) were selected for the quantification of the Rubisco large subunit (RBCL). It was hypothesized that the inorganic plant tissues would contain a higher Rubisco content, due to a higher access of essential nutrients via fertilizers, when compared to their organic counterparts. Western Blot and SDS Page analysis indicated that there was no RBCL present in the protein extracted from all plant tissues. Real-time PCR analysis of plastid content showed that inorganic onion was the only DNA sequence amplified. This was also confirmed in the agarose gel electrophoresis. Based on experimental results, it was unclear as to whether or not inorganic leaf tissues contained a higher Rubisco content than organic leaf tissue. Therefore, the hypothesis may be neither accepted nor refuted.
Allium fistulosum Lactuca sativa
Authors :
Hilary Jacobson James Madison University
Theresa Russo Last Updated: 12/01/2008