Short-term kinetics of elongation growth of gibberellin-responsive lettuce hypocotyl sections

Abstract

The short-term kinetics of growth of the excised lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) hypocotyl were characterized with respect to the effects of gibberellic acid (GA₃), indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), KCl and pH. A Hall-device-based, miniaturized, linear displacement transducer was developed to measure the growth of 2-mm hypocotyl sections with 1-μm resolution. Following treatment with GA₃, a lag time of less than 10 min was typically followed by an increase in growth rate with two acceleration phases, reaching a final elevated rate within about 1 h. The kinetics of the response to GA₁, a mixture of GA₄ and GA₇, and GA₉ were similar to the response to GA₃. There was no response to IAA treatment either in the presence or absence of GA₃. KCl alone had no effect on the growth rate, but caused an increase in rate when added after GA₃, with a lag time of usually less than 1 h. Responses to pH changes had lag times of a few minutes in all cases. A shift from H₂O to pH 6 buffer inhibited growth, while a shift from H₂O to pH 4 buffer resulted in a transient increase to a rate comparable to that induced by GA₃. A shift from pH 6 to pH 5 caused an increase in growth rate, followed by a gradual decline to an H₂O control rate after more than an hour. The responses to GA₃ at pH 4 and pH 5 were similar to that found for addition of GA₃ to water controls.