Environmental and developmental regulation of trypsin inhibitor activity in Brassica napus

We examined several environmental and developmental influences on trypsin inhibitor (TI) activity in leaves of young Brassica napus seedlings in a series of greenhouse experiments. In seedlings of B. napus cv. Westar, TI activity is constitutively present and exhibits a rise then fall through time in the first true leaves of young plants. TI activity is induced by wounding in the first true leaves, but the degree of induction is relatively insensitive to the degree of wounding over a gradient of 5-15% of leaf area damage. TI activity is enhanced in first true leaves of plants in which the cotyledons have been wounded relative to plants in which the cotyledons have not been wounded. TI activity is also enhanced in the second true leaves on plants in which the first true leaves have been wounded. The degree of systemic induction in second true leaves declines additively with plant age, but local induction in the first true leaves is not affected by age. In B. napus cv. Gido, TI activity is constitutively present but is not locally wound-inducible in first true leaves of young plants exposed to the same wounding gradient as cv. Westar. In unwounded plants at the six-leaf stage, TI activity is higher in second true leaves than in fifth true leaves, indicating that TI activity is developmentally regulated in this cultivar.