Temperature sensing by plants: the primary characteristics of signal perception and calcium response

Abstract

SummaryCold elicits an immediate rise in the cytosolic free calcium concentration ([Ca 2+ ] c ) of plant cells. We have studied the concerted action of the three underlying mechanisms, namely sensing, sensitisation and desensitisation, which become important when plants in the ®eld are subjected to changes in temperature. We applied different regimes of temperature changes with well-de®ned cooling rates to intact roots of Arabidopsis thaliana expressing the calcium-indicator, aequorin. Our results indicate that temperature sensing is mainly dependent on the cooling rate, dT/dt, whereas the absolute temperature T is of less importance. Arabidopsis roots were found to be sensitive to cooling rates of less than dT/dt = 0.01vC/s. However, at cooling rates below 0.003vC/s (i.e. cooling 10vC in 1 h) there is no detectable [Ca 2+

Transcriptomic Analysis Reveals Calcium Regulation of Specific Promoter Motifs inArabidopsis

“…The single monophasic transient resembles the responses to osmotic stress, oxidative stress, and rapid cooling (Knight et al, 1996;Knight et al, 1997;Rentel and Knight, 2004), and prolonged responses have been reported in response to slow cooling (Plieth et al, 1999). Oscillations of calcium have been reported in guard cells responding to ABA and in legume root hairs responding to Nod factors (Wais et al, 2000;Allen et al, 2001), although it is important to note that the frequencies used here were not the same as those observed in guard and root hair cells.…”

Desaturase mutants reveal that membrane rigidification acts as a cold perception mechanism upstream of the diacylglycerol kinase pathway in Arabidopsis cells

“…Transferring cells from 22°C to a lower temperature led to a progressive reduction in the suspension temperature; the lower the final temperature, the steeper the temperature decrease (not shown). Even though the final temperature was not sensed by the cells after 1 min, it appeared that the rate of temperature decrease was important for cold perception, as shown for the cold-elicited Ca 2+ influx [23].…”

Fungi associated to bark lesions of Eucalyptus globulus stems in plantations from Uruguay

“…Under this unfavorable condition, several physiological changes are produced in plants manifested as senescence or wounds in photosynthetic tissues (SMIRNOFF, 1993). It was also observed that during periods of freezing temperatures, both stems and branches of some trees may also develop cracks (KOZLOWSKI et al, 1991;PLIETH, 1999;HARA et al, 2003).…”