Fat Metabolism in Higher Plants: XLVII. The Effect of Nitrite and Other Anions on the Formation of Unsaturated Fatty Acids by Isolated Chloroplasts.

Intact spinach and barley chloroplast normally incorporate (14)C-acetate into palmitate and oleate as the major (14)C fatty acids. Addition of nitrite markedly altered the relative patterns of the products with the appearance of stearate, a drop in oleate, but no marked change in palmitate. Arsenite greatly increased appearance of palmitate with a concomitant decrease in the C(18) fatty acids. The effect of other anions was also examined. Spinach and barley plants grown under different nitrogen nutritional conditions also served as sources of chloroplasts, and their activities suggest a correlation between nitrite reductase activity and stearate accumulation.