9723999 Cohen Indole-3-acetic acid is found in plants in free and conjugated forms. One of the less well studied forms of conjugated IAA are a class of peptides/proteins that are modified by the amide linkage of IAA to the protein. The work will address several problems of this class of IAA conjugates. Occurrence of the conjugates will be studied during fruit and seed development in particular, and in other organs of the plant during vegetative development. IAA peptides will be isolated and immunological and peptide mapping studies will be conducted. Transcripts for proteins from which these peptides derive will be obtained, based on the mapping data and these transcripts will be used for the analysis of expression of the genes during development. The studies are expected to provide an understanding of the, possibly multiple, roles of this class of modified proteins in relationship to growth regulator biology.
