Bacterial Ice Nucleation: A Factor in Frost Injury to Plants

Abstract

Heterogeneous ice nuclei are necessary, and the common epiphytic ice nucleation active (INA) bacteria Pseudomonas syringae van Hall and Erwinia herbicola (Lihnis) Dye are sufficient to incite frost injury to sensitive plants at -5C. The ice nucleation activity of the bacteria occurs at the same temperatures at which frost injury to sensitive plants occurs in nature. Bacterial ice nucleation on leaves can be detected at about -2°C, whereas the leaves themselves, ie. without INA bacteria, contain nuclei active only at much lower temperatures. The temperature at which injury to plants occurs is predictable on the basis of the ice nucleation activity of leaf discs, which in turn depends on the number and ice nucleation activity of their resident bacteria. Bacterial isolates which are able to incite injury to corn at -5°C are always active as ice nuclei at -5°C. INA bacteria incited frost injury to all of the species of sensitive plants tested.

Immersion freezing of ice nucleation active protein complexes

“…9) into the model. For our comparison, we consider the experimental data gained in our measurements with LACIS as well as data from earlier experiments (Maki et al, 1974;Yankofsky et al, 1981;Lindow et al, 1982;Wood et al, 2002). Results are shown in Fig.…”

“…However, Lindow et al (1982) directly reported frozen fractions. They analysed the freezing of P. syringae cells as function of temperature and cell concentration.…”

“…Following the drop freezing method as described in Vali (1971), since the 1970s, many studies investigated the ice nucleation behaviour of bacteria (e.g., Maki et al, 1974;Vali et al, 1976;Maki and Willoughby, 1978;Yankofsky et al, 1981;Lindow et al, 1982;Levin and Yankofsky, 1983;Orser et al, 1985;Turner et al, 1990;Cochet and Widehem, 2000). In most of these studies, the freezing of tens of droplets, which contained multiple (10 2 to 10 8 ) immersed bacteria cells per droplet and were placed on a substrate, was analysed and onset temperatures of freezing were determined.…”

Advances in physiological and molecular aspects of plant cold tolerance

“…Thus it would seem that in nature, plants will always supercool to some extent and it follows that eliminating INA bacterial cells from the plant tissue surfaces allows plants to protect themselves from freezing by enabling supercooling. This approach is being used in California to protect blossom in almond and peach orchards from spring radiation frosts (Lindow et al 1982) but has not been used systematically elsewhere. Fuller et al (2007) have demonstrated in vitro that the use of compounds that help shed surface water decreases the Figure 4.…”

Laboratory Study of Effects of Atmospheric Pollutants on Ice Nucleation Activity of Bacteria

“…Furthermore, for a given strain, the activity frequencies can be influenced by the host plant species. Lindow et al (1982) have shown that there were different activity frequencies between potato and tomato crops at -5°C. Moreover, some studies have shown that the variability of nucleating frequencies is a function of seasonal and diurnal changes for some bacterial populations (Hirano and Upper, 1989).…”