Glossy mutants of maize. VIII. Accumulation of fatty aldehydes in surface waxes of gl5 maize seedlings.

In corn seedlings (Zea mays L.) homozygous for the mutation gl5, the surface waxes are characteristically altered. In this mutant the main wax constituents (83.5%) are aldehydes while in the normal waxes alcohols predominate (62.7%). Moreover, in the normal waxes aldehydes and alcohols are made up mainly of the C32 term (99%), whereas in gl5 waxes the principal aldehyde is still C32 (90.7%) but the free alcohol composition pattern is noticeably modified. Here the predominant terms are C24, C26, and C28, with C32 representing only 16.6% of the total. The results indicate that the mutant induces a block in the synthesis of fatty alcohols while accumulating fatty aldehydes, the substrates from which the alcohols originate.