Perspectives in plant serotaxonomy
Perspectives in plant serotaxonomy
- Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden, 64(2), p.147-160, 1977 .
The capacity to view recent data in proper relation to other information, or the ability to correctly judge the significance of facts and ideas, requires a knowledge of both the past mistakes and the forward strides within a discipline. This paper is intended to help the reader formulate perspectives concerning 65 years of plant serotaxonomic research. The discovery that the immune reaction was only relatively specific and that the degree of cross-reactivity was essentially proportional to the degree of relationships between organisms had important implications for comparative systematic serology. It is the specific reactions, between determinants and antideterminants, which provide a measurement of protein similarities. The comparison of protein mixtures, rather than purified single proteins, has dominated taxonomic research because such an approach provides serological overall similarity, and thus a multicharacter comparison. The "antisystematic" reactions have recently been shown to result from variation in the systematic ranges of determinants; and the absorption (presaturation)technique for removing common determinants increases the accuracy of serological placements. The following items were evaluated: antigenic preparations, adjuvants, injection procedures, single versus mixed protein extractions, kind of plant tissue extracted, and the interference of secondary compounds. Cornus canadensis and C. suecica were found to be serologically very similar. The tested species of the genus Cornus were divided into three distinct serological groupings. The serological data support the separation of the Cornaceae and Nyssaceae; and the inclusion of Camptotheca and Nyssa in the Nyssoideae, and Davidia in the Davidioideae, both of the family Nyssaceae. Nyssa biflora and N. sylvatica were serologically very similar; N. ogeche and N. aquatica were serologically distinct from each other and from N. biflora and N. sylvatica. Nyssa ogeche was the most distinct species of the genus. Corokia cotoneaster had very little serological similarity with any of the tested species of the Cornales.
SEROTAXONOMY
The capacity to view recent data in proper relation to other information, or the ability to correctly judge the significance of facts and ideas, requires a knowledge of both the past mistakes and the forward strides within a discipline. This paper is intended to help the reader formulate perspectives concerning 65 years of plant serotaxonomic research. The discovery that the immune reaction was only relatively specific and that the degree of cross-reactivity was essentially proportional to the degree of relationships between organisms had important implications for comparative systematic serology. It is the specific reactions, between determinants and antideterminants, which provide a measurement of protein similarities. The comparison of protein mixtures, rather than purified single proteins, has dominated taxonomic research because such an approach provides serological overall similarity, and thus a multicharacter comparison. The "antisystematic" reactions have recently been shown to result from variation in the systematic ranges of determinants; and the absorption (presaturation)technique for removing common determinants increases the accuracy of serological placements. The following items were evaluated: antigenic preparations, adjuvants, injection procedures, single versus mixed protein extractions, kind of plant tissue extracted, and the interference of secondary compounds. Cornus canadensis and C. suecica were found to be serologically very similar. The tested species of the genus Cornus were divided into three distinct serological groupings. The serological data support the separation of the Cornaceae and Nyssaceae; and the inclusion of Camptotheca and Nyssa in the Nyssoideae, and Davidia in the Davidioideae, both of the family Nyssaceae. Nyssa biflora and N. sylvatica were serologically very similar; N. ogeche and N. aquatica were serologically distinct from each other and from N. biflora and N. sylvatica. Nyssa ogeche was the most distinct species of the genus. Corokia cotoneaster had very little serological similarity with any of the tested species of the Cornales.
SEROTAXONOMY