Abstract

It has been demonstrated that chlorophyll synthesis is related to protein syn-thesis and that the inhibition of protein synthesis in leaves results in the inhibition of chlorophyll synthesisc.(4). Chloramphenicol and actidione have been reported to inhibit chlorophyll synthesis in previous works.(8,11,15). Chloramphenicol was shown as the specific inhibitor of protein synthesis in bacteriac(3), while actidione was reported to inhibit the protein synthesis of algae, fungi, higher plants and animals, but not bacteria. .(18) Studies on the effects of chloramphenicol on a variety of synthetic processes induced by the aging of the red beet have shown that the primary site of action of these compounds is on some other process rather than on protein synthesis in the plant.(5,9,10,13) It has been widely accepted that cytoplasmic ribosomes of plant and animal cells are 80S, while ribosomes from bacteria are 70S. Recently, it has been demonstrated that chloroplasts contain 70S ribosome. (21) It has been suggested in a previous report that chloramphenicol inhibited the function of 70S ribosomes and actidione inhibited the function of 80S ribosomes. (21)