Abstract
Magnetic gradients have the valuable property of exerting a repulsive ponderomotive force onto diamagnetic compounds. A carefully designed gradient and proper positioning of biological material can be used to manipulate gravisensing organelles such as amyloplasts of higher plants and other statoliths such as the BaSO4-filled vesicles of Characean algae. This chapter describes the main considerations of magnetic gradients and their application as a localized force field to manipulate (sort) cellular organelles based on their magnetic properties. Many of the inferences from such activities have yet to be investigated.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Grolig F, Doring M, Galland P (2006) Gravisusception by buoyancy: a mechanism ubiquitous among fungi? Protoplasma 229(2–4):117–123
Guevorkian K, Valles JM (2004) Varying the effective buoyancy of cells using magnetic force. Appl Phys Lett 84(24):4863–4865
Geim A (1998) Everyone’s magnetism. Physics Today 51(9):36–39
Simon MD, Geim AK (2000) Diamagnetic levitation: flying frogs and floating magnets (invited). J Appl Phys 87(9III):6200–6204
Kuznetsov OA, Hasenstein KH (1996) Intracellular magnetophoresis of amyloplasts and induction of root curvature. Planta 198(1):87–94
Audus LJ (1960) Magnetotropism: a new plant-growth response. Nature 185:132–134
Geim AK, Simon MD, Boamfa MI, Heflinger LO (1999) Magnet levitation at your fingertips. Nature 400(6742):323–324
Valles JM, Maris HJ, Seidel GM, Tang J, Yao W (2005) Magnetic levitation-based Martian and Lunar gravity simulator. Adv Space Res 36:114–118
Hasenstein KH, John S, Scherp P, Povinelli D, Mopper S (2013) Analysis of magnetic gradients to study gravitropism. Am J Bot 100(1):249–255. doi:10.3732/ajb.1200304
Kuznetsov OA, Hasenstein KH (2001) Intracellular magnetophoresis of statoliths in Chara rhizoids and analysis of cytoplasm viscoelasticity. Adv Space Res 27(5):887–892
Weise SE, Kuznetsov OA, Hasenstein KH, Kiss JZ (2000) Curvature in Arabidopsis inflorescence stems is limited to the region of amyloplast displacement. Plant Cell Physiol 41(6):702–709
Braun M, Limbach C (2005) Gravisensing in single-celled systems—update on characean rhizoids and protonemata. Adv Space Res 36(7):1156–1161
Paul AL, Ferl RJ, Meisel MW (2006) High magnetic field induced changes of gene expression in arabidopsis. Biomagn Res Technol 4:7
Acknowledgment
This work was supported by NASA grant NNX10AP91G.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Hasenstein, K.H. (2015). Use of High Gradient Magnetic Fields to Evaluate Gravity Perception and Response Mechanisms in Plants and Algae. 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_17
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2697-8_17
Publisher Name: Humana Press, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-2696-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-2697-8
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols