| Summary: | Pterocarpan phytoalexins are antimicrobial compounds produced by legumes when challenged by biotic stresses. Most legumes produce pterocarpan phytoalexins with (-)-stereochemistry but pea (Pisum sativum L.) produces as its major phytoalexin (+)-pisatin. Pea also occasionally produces a minor amount of (-)-maackiain as a pterocarpan phytoalexin, and studies on the biosyntheses of (+)-pisatin and (-)-maackiain have shown that up to (-)-7,2'-dihydroxy-4',5'-methylenedioxyisoflavanone [(-)-sophorol] and 7,2'-dihydroxy-4',5'-methyl-enedioxyisoflavanol [(-)-DMDI]they have common intermediates with (-)-DMDI being where the two pathways diverge. The final step in (+)-pisatin biosynthesis is the methylation of (+)-6a-hydroxymaackiain [(+)-6a-HMK] by 6a-hydroxymaackiain methyltransferase (HMM2) but the steps from (-)-DMDI to (+)-6a-HMK are unknown.The shifting of the stereochemistry from (-)-DMDI to (+)-6a-HMK has been proposed to involve the achiral isoflavene, 7, 2'-dihydroxy-4', 5'-methylene-dioxyisoflav-3-ene (DMDIF). In this dissertation, I have shown that cis-(-)-DMDI is the enzymatic product of (-)-sophorol, and is the precursor of DMDIF which is produced by the dehydration activity of "isoflavene synthase" (IFVS). IFVS activity was not observed in elicited tissues of alfalfa, chickpea, beans, pepper, and broccoli, plants that do not produce (+) pterocarpans. Partial purification of IFVS demonstrated that it is either large in size or tightly complexed with other proteins. The SDS-PAGE of the 29-fold purified product revealed 12 major bands that aggregated into 3 bands in the non-denaturing PAGE. IFVS activity was in band 3 which co-migrated with marker proteins of>100 kDa in size. Proteins identified from LC-MS/MS peptide sequences of the proteins in band 3, when compared to three protein databases, did not identify any proteins with an enzymatic activity expected for IFVS. A disease resistance-response protein (a dirigent-like protein) and two protein-binding proteins were the most abundantly detected proteins in the pea transcriptome-translated database. Also, four of the known enzymes (isoflavone reductase, HMM1, HMM2, and sophorol reductase) involved in (+)-pisatin biosynthesis were among the proteins identified. It may be that IFVS is associated with these other proteins as a complex in vitro and in vivo. The lack of detection of IFVS in the databases could be because it has not yet been sequenced as it functions in a rare biosynthetic pathway.
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