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Regulator or driving force? The role of turgor pressure in oscillatory plant cell growth.

ABSTRACT: Turgor generates the stress that leads to the expansion of plant cell walls during cellular growth. This has been formalized by the Lockhart equation, which can be derived from the physical laws of the deformation of viscoelastic materials. However, the experimental evidence for such a direct correlation between growth rate and turgor is inconclusive. This has led to challenges of the Lockhart model. We model the oscillatory growth of pollen tubes to investigate this relationship. We couple the Lockhart equation to the dynamical equations for the change in material properties. We find that the correct implementation of the Lockhart equation within a feedback loop leading to low amplitude oscillatory growth predicts that in this system changes in the global turgor do not influence the average growth rate in a linear manner, consistent with experimental observations. An analytic analysis of our model demonstrates in which regime the average growth rate becomes uncorrelated from the turgor pressure.

SUBMITTER: Kroeger JH

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3081820 | biostudies-literature | 2011

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Regulator or driving force? The role of turgor pressure in oscillatory plant cell growth.

Kroeger Jens H JH Zerzour Rabah R Geitmann Anja A

PloS one 20110425 4

Turgor generates the stress that leads to the expansion of plant cell walls during cellular growth. This has been formalized by the Lockhart equation, which can be derived from the physical laws of the deformation of viscoelastic materials. However, the experimental evidence for such a direct correlation between growth rate and turgor is inconclusive. This has led to challenges of the Lockhart model. We model the oscillatory growth of pollen tubes to investigate this relationship. We couple the ...[more]

PMID: 21541026

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Project description:Background and aimsTurgor pressure within a plant cell represents the key to the mechanistical descriptiion of plant growth, combining the effects of both water and carbon availability. The high level of spatio-temporal variation and diurnal dynamics in turgor pressure within a single plant make it a challenge to model these on the fine spatial scale required for functional-structural plant models (FSPMs). A conceptual model for turgor-driven growth in FSPMs has been established previously, but its practical use has not yet been explored.MethodsA turgor-driven growth model was incorporated in a newly established FSPM for soybean. The FSPM simulates dynamics in photosynthesis, transpiration and turgor pressure in direct relation to plant growth. Comparisons of simulations with field data were used to evaluate the potential and shortcomings of the modelling approach.Key resultsModel simulations revealed the need to include an initial seed carbon contribution, a more realistic sink function, an estimation of respiration, and the distinction between osmotic and structural sugars, in order to achieve a realistic model of plant growth. However, differences between simulations and observations remained in individual organ growth patterns and under different environmental conditions. This exposed the need to further investigate the assumptions of developmental and environmental (in)sensitivity of the parameters, which represent physiological and biophysical organ properties in the model, in future research.ConclusionsThe model in its current form is primarily a diagnostic tool, to better understand and model the behaviour of water relations on the scale of individual plant organs throughout the plant life cycle. Potential future applications include its use as a phenotyping tool to capture differences in plant performance between genotypes and growing environments in terms of specific plant characteristics. Additionally, focused experiments can be used to further improve the model mechanisms to lead to better predictive FSPMs, including scenarios of water deficit.

Dataset Information

Regulator or driving force? The role of turgor pressure in oscillatory plant cell growth.

Publications

Regulator or driving force? The role of turgor pressure in oscillatory plant cell growth.

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