Consideration of apoplastic water in plant organs: a reminder
Ian F. WardlawA CSIRO Plant Industry, GPO Box 1600, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.
B Corresponding author. Email: Ian.Wardlaw@anu.edu.au
Functional Plant Biology 32(6) 561-569 https://doi.org/10.1071/FP04127
Submitted: 19 July 2004 Accepted: 19 April 2005 Published: 15 June 2005
Abstract
The importance of apoplastic water was confirmed for the leaves of a range of species by a comparison of tissue solute concentrations determined by the extrapolation of water potential isotherms to 100% relative water content (symplastic solute concentration at full turgor) and concentrations derived more directly from frozen / thawed tissue, where there is dilution of the symplastic water fraction by the apoplastic water fraction. A thermocouple psychrometer was used for both water potential and solute potential measurements. Parallel measurements of the apoplastic water content, estimated by the extrapolation of pressure–volume curves to zero (1 / water potential) with a pressure chamber and measurements based on the dilution method, with a thermocouple psychrometer, showed that the two methods gave similar results. This lends support to the conclusion that water is lost from the symplast and not from the apoplast of leaves when these are subjected to increasing pressure in a pressure chamber. However, where tissues or organs are air-dried the loss of water occurs from both the symplast and apoplast.
The overall data support the conclusion that the apoplastic water should not be ignored in plant water relations studies, particularly when estimating cell turgor indirectly from the difference between water potential and cell solute concentration based on the analysis of frozen / thawed tissue.
Keywords: apoplastic water, osmotic potential, water potential, water potential isotherms.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to the staff of the Canberra phytotron (CERES) for their help with the growth of the plant material and Lyn Moncur for her technical assistance. I am grateful for the comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript by D. F. Gaff and N. C. Turner.
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