Pollen-specific peroxidase Px2
--Emil E. Khavkin and M. V. Zabrodina

Among numerous maize peroxidases (MNL 67:83, 1993), the pollen-specific Px2 is of particular interest. The enzyme activity was absent from any other (seedling and tassel) tissues, including pre-shedding anthers, and rapidly increased in the pollen during the first hours after shedding. By comparing peroxidase patterns of the pollen extracted with hypo- and isotonic buffer solutions, we suggest that Px2 is apparently located in the exine and might participate, in a yet undefined way, in pollen recognition and germination.

Two Px2 allelomorphs were found, with the predominant fast isozyme in 2/3 of screened inbreds. As a first step to mapping px2, we compared peroxidase isozyme patterns in the inbreds commonly employed as parental lines for molecular mapping. Both B73 and Mo17 had the fast Px2 allelomorph, whereas Tx303 and CO159 differed by this marker, with the slow and the fast isozymes, respectively. 

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