The Relationship of Some Glycosidases to the Endogenous and IAA‐induced Growth of Light‐grown Cucumber Hypocotyls

Some glycosidases in light‐grown cucumber ( Cucumis sativus L. cv. Aonaga‐jibae) hypocotyl sections were examined with respect to their localization and relation to endogenous and IAA‐induced growth. Frozen‐thawed sections were used directly for measurement of enzyme activities, and β‐glucosidase, α‐ and β‐galactosidases and β‐xylosidase were assayed by using p ‐ or o ‐nitro‐phenylglycopyranosides as substrates. The order of the activity of these enzymes were β ‐glucosidase > β ‐galactosidase =α‐galactosidase > β‐xylosidase. No activity of α‐glucosidase was detected. High glycosidase activities were found in the youngest region of the hypocotyl, where the endogenous growth rate was highest. However, there was no significant difference in the activities of this region between seedlings at different growth stages. Among the enzymes tested, β ‐glucosidase showed a high correlation with the endogenous growth rate. β‐glucosidase was found to be mostly associated with the cell wall fraction, while β‐galactosidase was rather found in the soluble fraction of the cell. Separation of the epidermis from the section showed that a very high activity of β‐glucosidase was associated with the epidermis. In both whole sections and isolated cell wall fractions, IAA was shown to have no effect on the activities of β‐glucosidase and β‐galactosidase.