Transmembrane potential, an indicator in situ reporting cellular senescence and stress response in plant tissues

Abstract

Background Plant cells usually sustain a stable membrane potential due to influx and/or efflux of charged ions across plasma membrane. With the growth and development of plants, different tissues and cells undergo systemic or local programmed decline. Whether the membrane potential of plasma membrane could report senescence signal of plant tissues and cells is unclear. Results We applied a maneuverable transmembrane potential (TMP) detection method with patch-clamp setup to examine the senescence signal of leaf tissue cells in situ over the whole life cycle in Arabidopsis thaliana. The data showed that the TMPs of plant tissues and cells were varied at different growth stages, and the change of TMP was higher at the vegetative growth stage than at the reproductive stage of plant growth. The distinct change of TMP was detectable between the normal and the senescent tissues and cells in several plant species. Moreover, diverse abiotic stimuli, such as heat stress, hyperpolarized the TMP in a short time, followed by depolarized membrane potential with the senescence occurring. We further examined the TMP of plant chloroplasts, which also indicates the senescence signal in organelles. Conclusions This convenient TMP detection method can report the senescence signal of plant tissues and cells, and can also indicate the potential of plant tolerance to environmental stress.

Plant phenotyping relevance

植物組織・細胞の老化やストレス状態を in situ で推定する膜電位測定法を開発・適用し、正常組織や老化組織、複数植物種、ストレス条件で検証しているため、フェノタイピング手法が中心である。

Code and data availability

The article describes patch-clamp TMP measurements, qRT-PCR, and HPLC analyses, but no public phenotype/trait dataset, image/sensor data deposit, author analysis code, or trained model is mentioned. The only supplementary material (Additional file 1) contains figures and a primer table, not raw phenotyping data or code

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