A caution against the use of polyvinylpyrrolidone in the extraction of plant glutamine synthetase
The successful extraction of glutamine synthetase from most plant tissues requires the removal of plant phenolics. Extraction in the presence of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) was found to be unsatisfactory with all but one of the species tested. The effect varied in magnitude from a small loss of activity to complete inactivation of the enzyme. With flax cotyledons, no activity could be recovered using PVP. This failure resulted from (1) failure of polyvinylpyrrolidone to remove certain phenolics quantitatively during extraction and (2) inhibition of glutamine synthetase per se. Homogenization with small quantities of anion exchange resin usually gave satisfactory recovery, although this procedure removed less total phenolics than did PVP: it was necessary, however, to use the resin in much lower quantities than those previously prescribed to avoid adsorption of the enzyme itself.