Flashes of light show how plants signal danger
- 6 years ago
MADISON, WISCONSIN — Researchers have found that plants communicate distress by using their own signaling system.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor of Botany Simon Gilroy and his lab have revealed how glutamate activates a wave of calcium that spreads across leaves to warn of danger.
"We know there's this systematic signaling system, and if you wound in one place the rest of the plant triggers its defense responses," says Gilroy, according to the University of Wisconsin. "But we didn't know what was behind this system."
"We do know if you wound a leaf, you get an electrical charge, and you get a propagation that moves across the plant," he added.
The scientists wanted to know what triggered the electric charge, and how it moved throughout the plant.
Calcium was one possibility, but the researchers needed to be able to see calcium in real time, so special plants were developed the produce a protein that only fluoresces around calcium.
The team then subjected the plants to caterpillar bites, scissor cuts and crushing wounds and used video to track the responses.
In response to each type of distress, videos show the plants lighting up as calcium spreads from the site of damage to other leaves.
The signal spread to the other leaves in a few minutes, which was then followed by a spike in defense-related hormones in distant leaves.
The scientists were then able to pinpoint glutamate as the trigger the sent out the waves of calcium.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor of Botany Simon Gilroy and his lab have revealed how glutamate activates a wave of calcium that spreads across leaves to warn of danger.
"We know there's this systematic signaling system, and if you wound in one place the rest of the plant triggers its defense responses," says Gilroy, according to the University of Wisconsin. "But we didn't know what was behind this system."
"We do know if you wound a leaf, you get an electrical charge, and you get a propagation that moves across the plant," he added.
The scientists wanted to know what triggered the electric charge, and how it moved throughout the plant.
Calcium was one possibility, but the researchers needed to be able to see calcium in real time, so special plants were developed the produce a protein that only fluoresces around calcium.
The team then subjected the plants to caterpillar bites, scissor cuts and crushing wounds and used video to track the responses.
In response to each type of distress, videos show the plants lighting up as calcium spreads from the site of damage to other leaves.
The signal spread to the other leaves in a few minutes, which was then followed by a spike in defense-related hormones in distant leaves.
The scientists were then able to pinpoint glutamate as the trigger the sent out the waves of calcium.