We have a lab in our basic plant physiology course where epidermal peels from dark- and light adapted plants are incubated with different KCl concentrations and/or ABA to demonstrate stomatal responses. We have been using epidermal peels from Commelina communis (asiatic dayflower) with very good results. However, our seeds have really a low germination rate and it's been difficult to collect and maintain the seeds. And I can´t find a commercial source of the seeds. Thus, I would very much like to replace Commelina with some other more easily obtained plants. Does any one have a suggestion? I know, in theory, that anything should work, but in practice it would be good to use something tested and tried.
Thanks,
Mats
Probably this is a side point to you:
To keep high germination rate of seeds, you should (1) constantly renew the seed stock by re-grow the plants, and (2) store the seeds in a cold room to keep the seeds viable.
To your question:
Maybe you can try Onion (Allium cepa L.). It is a very common vegetable selling in the markets. See the attached paper, the authors also used ABA/K+ to demonstrate the closure of stomata of Onion.
In its abstract:
....."ABA (10 micromolar) induced closure of the stomata in Onion, Allium cepa L. and Vicia faba epidermal peels. This is associated with loss of K' from guard cells."..........
I used Pedilanthus tithymaloides (Euphorbiaceae). The plant is easy to propagate from cuttings. You can have a high amount of leaves all year long. The variegatus cultivar has leaves with green, red, yellow or white sectors what allows other studies: on the influence of pigments, light, temperature and about foliar ontogeny. It is easy to work on the whole plant and to make foliar imprints with a transparent, no aggressive and with fast solidification, very common liquid glue (of a widely known mark, green tube). As any Member of the Euphorbia genus the plant contains some latex and it is a CAM plant... A great material for a lot of other studies.
Leaves of Pelargonium sp., Vicia faba and Tradescantia sp. are easily available and suitable for guard cell response to ABA/K experiments.
Hello. We use lettuce leaves. Large stomata and easy available plant.
Hello Mats X Andersson,
You can use Tradescantia (Tradescantia fluminensis or Tradescantia albiflora, Commelinaceae). The plant is easy to propagate from stem cuttings. Leaves of Tradescantia are suitable for stomata response demonstration experiments.
Good luck with your work.
Bricage has a great idea to show auxillary pigments, but for this lab, I agree with Renata. Our plant physiology lab uses spinach leaves (regular size, not baby spinach) purchased from any grocery store. The epidermis of the leaves are easy to peel with fine forceps without damaging the stomata, then you can treat for different responses.
Thank you all very much for the suggestions!
It sound like there are quite a few different plants that would work. The important thing for this course is propably that the epidermis can be easily peeled off. I think we'll try Pelargonium sp., Vicia faba and Tradescantia as Edward suggests. I'll get back with an evaluation of how it worked out
Best,
Mats
hi;
You can try the epidermis the lower surface of Tradescantia zebra
Arabidopsis thalinan, the model plant, might be a good candidate for study of stomatal response.
Arabidopsis, obviously has a lot of things going for it, however, it takes relatively long time to get substantial leaf area and the epidermis is not very easily peeled off. Thus, in this particular case Arabidopsis would not be my first choice.
How about tobacco leaf. Epidermis peel will be much easier than Arabidopsis.
Arabdopsis, with several mutant aba obviously or ost (already open stomata).
You can try Tradescantia zebrina Commelinaceae. The leaf area and the epidermis is very easily peeled.
Common bean (Phaseoulus vulgaris) has been used historically for stomata response. It produces big leaves, grows easy and has big stomata.
Good luck!
I agree with Jorge that common bean or faba bean is very good and used frequently for stomata studies.
Good luck.
For monocots Tradescantia virginiana and for dicots Vicia faba are well known plant species for stomatal research. You can easily peel off their epidermis without trouble and also they have large stomatal size which are nicely responsive to environmental variables
As I know the most common plant model for stomata opening study are Vicia faba's leaves
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