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Electrical and chemical signals involved in short-term systemic photosynthetic responses of tobacco plants to local burning

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Abstract

Short-term (up to 1 h) systemic responses of tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum cv. Samsun) plants to local burning of an upper leaf were studied by measuring the following variables in a distant leaf: extracellular electrical potentials (EEPs); gas exchange parameters; fast chlorophyll fluorescence induction; and endogenous concentrations of three putative chemical signaling compounds—abscisic (ABA), jasmonic (JA), and salicylic (SA) acids. The first detected response to local burning in the distant leaves was in EEP, which started to decline within 10–20 s of the beginning of the treatment, fell sharply for ca. 1–3 min, and then tended to recover within the following hour. The measured gasometric parameters (stomatal conductance and the rates of transpiration and CO2 assimilation) started to decrease 5–7 min after local burning, suggesting that the electrical signals may induce stomatal closure. These changes were accompanied by systemic increases in the endogenous ABA concentration followed by huge systemic rises in endogenous JA levels started after ca. 15 min, providing the first evidence of short-term systemic accumulation of these plant hormones in responses to local burning. Furthermore, JA appears to have an inhibitory effect on CO2 assimilation. The correlations between the kinetics of the systemic EEP, stomatal, photosynthetic, ABA, and JA responses suggest that (1) electrical signals (probably induced by a propagating hydraulic signal) may trigger chemical defense-related signaling pathways in tobacco plants; (2) both electrical and chemical signals are interactively involved in the induction of short-term systemic stomatal closure and subsequent reductions in the rate of transpiration and CO2 assimilation after local burning events.

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Abbreviations

A:

Net photosynthetic rate

ABA:

Abscisic acid

Ci :

Intercellular CO2 concentration

E:

Transpiration rate

E1:

Electrode 1

E2:

Electrode 2

EEP:

Extracellular electrical potential

gs :

Stomatal conductance

HPLC-MS:

High performance liquid chromatography—mass spectrometry

JA:

Jasmonic acid

SA:

Salicylic acid

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Acknowledgments

The project was supported by grants from the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic, Nos. MSM 6198959215, MSM 6198959216 and GACR 206/05/0894. Grateful thanks are extended to Prof. M. Höfte, Laboratory of Phytopathology, Ghent University, Belgium, for allowing V.H. to work in her Laboratory and critical reading of the manuscript and also to Dr. A. Enow Achuo from the same Laboratory for teaching her the extraction and purification methods of plant hormones. We sincerely thank Prof. E. Prinsen of the Dept. of Biology, University of Antwerp, Belgium for kindly providing the internal [18O]JA tracer and Dr. John Blackwell for English editing. We thank Dr. P. Ilík, Dr. M. Kubala and R. Kaňa for the critical reading of the manuscript, for the adaptation of electrical potential measurement (P.I.) and for teaching V.H. gasometric measurement (R.K.). We also thank P. Jakl, J. Veselská and Z. Weinlich for technical assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Experimental Physics, Laboratory of Biophysics, Palacký University, tř. Svobody 26, 771 46, Olomouc, Czech Republic

    Vladimíra Hlaváčková, Pavel Krchňák, Jan Nauš & Martina Špundová

  2. Laboratory of Growth Regulators, Palacký University and Institute of Experimental Botany ASCR, Šlechtitelů 11, 783 71, Olomouc, Czech Republic

    Ondřej Novák & Miroslav Strnad

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  1. Vladimíra Hlaváčková
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Correspondence to Vladimíra Hlaváčková.

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Hlaváčková, V., Krchňák, P., Nauš, J. et al. Electrical and chemical signals involved in short-term systemic photosynthetic responses of tobacco plants to local burning. Planta 225, 235–244 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-006-0325-x

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