A survey of herbicides for their effect upon protein synthesis.

The means by which many herbicides kill susceptible plants are presently unknown (1, 3). Although it is not essential to know the mode of action in order to develop and use a herbicide efficiently, the screening processes by which herbicides are discovered are based upon comparative biochemistry. Selective herbicides with low nmammalian toxicity (2) must take advantage of differences in metabolism between plants and animals, and between plant species, just as therapeutically effective antibiotics take advantage of differences betweeni bacterial and mammalian biochemistry. Knowledge of herbicide effects may prove useful for other areas within plant physiology. A screening technique has been used in the present study to determine the effect of various herbicides on the incorporation of leucine into protein. The results show differences between those herbicides which, more or less directly, inhibit protein synthesis, and those which act uponl quite unrelated pathways. This approach is designed to indicate the areas that should be studied more intensively for each herbicide.