ENZYME ACTION IN THE MARINE ALGAE 



A. R. DAVIS 



Research Assistant to the Missouri Botanical Garden, 

 Formerly Rufus J. Lackland Fellow in the Henry Shaw School of Botany of 



Washington University 



In a previous contribution from this laboratory 1 attention 

 has been called to the difficulties experienced in demonstrating 

 enzyme action in Fucus vesiculosus. Because of the negative 

 results there obtained it was deemed worth while to extend 

 the study to certain representative forms of the three great 

 groups of marine algae, the " greens," the "browns," and 

 the "reds"; first, to ascertain whether this apparent inac- 

 tivity were generally characteristic of the algae, and second, 

 because of the light such an investigation might shed upon 

 the general metabolism of the group. 



Historical 



Knowledge concerning enzyme activity and the distribution 

 of enzymes in the algae is extremely meagre. The few papers 

 that have found their way into the literature have been, for 

 the most part, by-products of other studies and as such have 

 dealt merely with isolated phases of the subject. From time 

 to time, previous to actual demonstration, the presence of 

 enzymes has been suggested by the work of various investi- 

 gators. Arber ('01), attacking the problem of carbon as- 

 similation in Ulva latissima, 2 found that the accumulation of 

 starch in the tissue disappeared very slowly when the plant 

 was subjected to darkness. This would suggest the presence 

 of a diastase acting slowly. Spargo ('13) observed that 

 Chlamydomonas began growth more slowly when the medium 

 contained sucrose as a source of carbon than when dextrose 

 was supplied. She suggests that the sugar is probably assim- 



1 Duggar, B. M. and Davis, A. R. Enzyme action in Fucus vesiculosus. Ann. 

 Mo. Bot. Gard. 1:419-426. 1914. 



2 The binomials used throughout the historical review are those employed 

 by the original investigators, no attempt being made to have them conform to 

 any different existing nomenclature. 



Ann. Mo. Bot. Gard., Vol. 2, 1915 



(771) 



