Certain Enzymatic Activities of Normal and Mosaic Infected Tobacco Plants

The lower leaves of tobacco plants were inoculated with leaf mosaic virus and the activities of oxygenase, peroxidase, catalase, and invertase were followed in leaves of comparable age at intervals of 2 or 3 days over a period of 21 days. The inoculated leaves exhibited a great decrease relative to normal tissue in the activity of oxygenase and peroxidase on the 6th day. Younger leaves showed this minimum at a progressively later date. A great decrease in the activities of these enzymes was attained by the 14th to the 18th day. This maximum was followed by a decrease. Catalase exhibited an increased activity which reached a maximum at about the 8th day. A second maximum was observed on the 16th to the 18th day. Invertase reached a minimum, relative to normal plants, on about the 8th day. A second minimum was approached on the 16th to the 18th day. These data show that profound disturbances in the physiology of infected plants occur many days before the leaf juice attains an infectious concentration of virus. The observed activities could not be due therefore to metabolic activities of the virus particles themselves. Since infectivity is attained only after a period of profound physiological disturbance, it seems possible that the virus protein develops as a product of abnormal metabolism.