Genetic control of alcohol dehydrogenase in the Japanese species of Trillium.

Abstract

Endosperm alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) was investigated electrophoretically in T. kamtschaticum Pall. (2n=10; K1K1), T. tschonoskii Maxim. (2n=20; K2K2TT), T. smallii Maxim. (2n=20; SSUU) and their F1 hybrids. Main electrophoretic phenotypes so far detected are composed of fast, slow and intermediately moving bands. We denote them for convenience as F, S and H bands, respectively. T, kamtschaticum shows only F band; T, tschonoskii has two visible and one concealed S bands, viz., the main slowest band (S1), a hybrid band (S2) and slightly faster but concealed band (S3); T. smallii reveals all three main bands or FS pattern. All the F1 progeny of interspecific crosses exhibit the FS pattern. We assign the following alleles for respective ADH isozymes of each entity: AdhF′(K) in T. kamtschaticum, Adhs1(T) and AdhS2(T) in T. tschonoskii and AdhF′(S) and AdhS(S) in T. smallii. In vitro dissociation-recombination experiment demonstrates that these isozymes are dimers. These isozymes exhibit substrate specificity for alcohols with -CH2OH radical remarkably, viz., the highest activity for ethanol and n-propyl alcohol but inert for isopropyl alcohol and so forth.