The glyceollin inhibition of electron transport by isolated soybean and corn mitochondria was similar to that of rotenone, acting at site I between the internal NADH Glyceollin, a phytoalexin produced during the hypersensitive response in soybeans, is hypothesized to be responsible for the expression of cultivar-specific resistance of soybeans to Phytophthora megasperma var sojae (7,26), and its accumulation has been correlated with the incompatible response of soybeans to Meloidogyne incognita (5), and Pseudomonos glycinea (8). Glyceollin inhibits fungal and nematode growth in vitro at concentrations similar to localized concentrations found in vivo (6,26).Inhibition of nematode respiration and electron transport from several substrates to 02 in isolated soybean mitochondria by glyceollin has been reported by Kaplan, Keen, and Thomason (6), but the specific site ofinhibition by glyceollin was not determined. We thus began our study with the a priori assumption that glyceollin could play a primary role in plant-affected pathogen toxicity, and autophytotoxicity through effects on mitochondrial electron transport. The experiments reported here deal only with the autophytotoxicity of glyceollin on electron transport of mitochondria isolated from etiolated soybean hypocotyls and cotyledons and corn shoots. All studies were designed to determine the unique site of glyceollin effect on electron transport and utilized various substrates, electron acceptors, and known inhibitors.
MATERIALS AND METHODSSoybean seedlings (Glycine max L., cv Amsoy 71) were germinated and grown in the dark at 28°C in moist vermiculite saturated Isolation of mitochondria from cotyledon tissue was the same, except that the cotyledons were ground through an Oster Automatic Juicer (model 362; Oster Co., Milwaukee, WI) and filtered through Miracloth (Chicopee Mills, Inc., Milltown, NJ) before the first centrifugation.Purification of washed mitochondria consisted of resuspending washed mitochondria in 1 ml of standard resuspension medium consisting of 0.3 M mannitoL 20 mm Hepes, 0.1 mm EDTA, and 0.1% BSA at pH 7.2. The resuspended mitochondria were then placed on top of a discontinuous sucrose gradient similar to that used by Douce et aL (1), and consisting of 1.45 M sucrose (4 ml) layered under 1.2 M sucrose (10 ml). Tubes were centrifuged for 45 min at 60,000g at 4°C in a Sorvall AH 627 swinging bucket rotor placed in a Sorvall OTD 65 centrifuge.After centrifugation, mitochondria were located at the boundary of the two sucrose layers and were removed with a curved tip pasteur pipette. The purified mitochondria were then diluted slowly over a period of 20 min with the slow addition of 0.1 M sucrose containing 10 mm KH2PO4, and 0.1% BSA until a sucrose concentration of 0.3 M (pH 7.2) was achieved. The diluted mitochondrial suspension in 0.3 M sucrose was then centrifuged at 14,600g for 8 min. After centrifugation, the purified mitochondria were resuspended in the standard 0.3 M mannitol resuspension medium. Mitochondrial protein was esti...