Vessel wall vibrations: trigger for embolism repair?
Sebastiano Salleo A , Patrizia Trifilò B and Maria Assunta Lo Gullo B CA Dipartimento di Biologia, Università di Trieste, Via L. Giorgieri 10, 34127 Trieste, Italy.
B Dipartimento di Scienze della Vita ‘M. Malpigli’, Università di Messina, Salita Sperone 31, 98166 Messina S. Agata, Italy.
C Corresponding author. Email: mlogullo@unime.it
Functional Plant Biology 35(4) 289-297 https://doi.org/10.1071/FP07239
Submitted: 11 October 2007 Accepted: 4 April 2008 Published: 3 June 2008
Abstract
Xylem embolism repair is preceded by starch depolymerisation in vessel-associated cells (VAC) of Laurus nobilis L. (laurel) twigs, but the primary signal triggering such a process is still unknown. We tested the hypothesis that conduit wall vibrations during cavitation may be sensed by VAC inducing starch-to-sugar conversion. Twigs of laurel from watered or stressed plants were exposed to ultrasound for 60 min to simulate acoustic waves emitted by cavitating conduits. Preliminary tests showed that ultrasound caused no damage to cell membrane integrity nor did they cause xylem embolism. The number of VAC with high starch content (HSC-cells) was estimated microscopically by counting the cells with more than 50% of their lumen filled with starch granules. Sonication had no effect on HSC-cells in twigs from watered plants while it induced a drop in the percentage HSC-cells from 80 to 40% in twigs from stressed plants, at the ultrasound source location. No effect was recorded in these twigs 20 mm from the ultrasound source. Sonication was a good simulator of cavitation in inducing starch depolymerisation which suggests a possible bio- physical nature for the signal initiating embolism repair.
Additional keywords: embolism repair, Laurus nobilis, starch depolymerisation, stem sonication, wood parenchyma cells, xylem cavitation.
Acknowledgements
All authors are very grateful to both anonymous referees and especially to referee #1 for thorough improvement of the text and fruitful suggestions.
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