Occurrence of Guanidino Compounds in Several Plants

The stored nitrogen in perennial plants plays an important role in their regrowth in spring. Free L-arginine is one of the major forms of stored nitrogen (6, 9) .. LArginine is metabolized via the urea cycle in animal and plant tissues. In animal tissues, L-arginine is also metabolized via r-guanidinobutyramide, r-guanidinobutyric acid, and r-aminobutyric acid to the TCA cycle. In plant tissues, few attempts have been made to study arginine-metabolic routes other than the urea cycle. In white spruce tissues (3), L-arginine is metabolized via r-guanidinobutyric acid. Also in citrus tissues (4, 5), the operation of the same metabolic route has been reported. In these experiments, it was observed that various guanidino compounds reacted with the Sakaguchi reagent.

To obtain more information about the guanidino compounds involved in the arginine metabolism, the analytical system was evaluated and the presence of these compounds in several plant species was examined.