Abstract
Biological organisms are capable of perceiving environmental changes caused by a variety of agents. But whereas sensors of light (rhodopsins in animals or phytochromes in plants) are well-characterized, no knowledge is available concerning the thermal sensors. The only clue hitherto known about the thermal perception is that temperature decrease would result in a reduction of molecular motion in membranes, which is attained mainly via specific desaturation of fatty acids of membrane lipids [1]. It is assumed, that the response of systems to temperature stress via physiological, morphological and biochemical adjustments aimed at offset or compensate for the temperature-induced disturbances. Amongst the many compensatory responses, it seems that the major adjustment is the reorganization of the physical state of the cellular membranes, a phenomenon called “homeoviscous adaptation”.
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© 1995 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Vigh, L., Los, D.A., Murata, N., Glatz, A., Kovács, E., Horváth, I. (1995). Is the Membrane the Primary Target in the Biological Perception of Temperature? Effect of Membrane Physical State on the Expression of Stress-Defence Genes. In: Kader, JC., Mazliak, P. (eds) Plant Lipid Metabolism. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8394-7_100
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8394-7_100
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