Abstract
Plants sense gravity and change their morphology/growth direction accordingly (gravitropism). The early process of gravitropism, gravity sensing, is supposed to be triggered by sedimentation of starch-filled plastids (amyloplasts) in statocytes such as root columella cells and shoot endodermal cells. For several decades, many scientists have focused on characterizing the role of the amyloplasts and observed their intracellular sedimentation in various plants. Recently, it has been discovered that the complex sedimentary movements of the amyloplasts are created not only by gravity but also by cytoskeletal/organelle dynamics, such as those of actin filaments and the vacuolar membrane. Thus, to understand how plants sense gravity, we need to analyze both amyloplast movements and their regulatory systems in statocytes. We have developed a vertical-stage confocal microscope that allows multicolor fluorescence imaging of amyloplasts, actin filaments and vacuolar membranes in vertically oriented plant tissues. We also developed a centrifuge microscope that allows bright-field imaging of amyloplasts during centrifugation. These microscope systems provide new insights into gravity-sensing mechanisms in Arabidopsis.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Professor S. Gilroy for discussion and critical reading of the manuscript and to Dr. Y. Hashiguchi for technical assistance. This work was supported in part by TOYOBO Biotechnology Foundation (to M. Toyota), Grants-in-aid for the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Fellows (to M. Toyota), MEXT KAKENHI Grant Number 16085205 (to M.T. Morita), JST-PRESTO (to M.T. Morita), and JSPS Funding Program for Next Generation World-Leading Researchers (NEXT Program) (to M.T. Morita).
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Nakamura, M., Toyota, M., Tasaka, M., Terao Morita, M. (2015). Live Cell Imaging of Cytoskeletal and Organelle Dynamics in Gravity-Sensing Cells in Plant Gravitropism. In: Blancaflor, E. (eds) Plant Gravitropism. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1309. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2697-8_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2697-8_6
Publisher Name: Humana Press, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-2696-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-2697-8
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