Month: September 2022

EXAPTATION. "Venus flytrap carnivorous lifestyle builds on herbivore defense strategies. We hypothesize that the carnivory syndrome of Dionaea evolved by exaptation of ancient defense pathways, replacing cell death with nutrient acquisition." https://lnkd.in/eMqKE3X View in LinkedIn

LARGE TRANSCRIPTOME CHANGES. "We show that the transcriptomic landscape of the Dionaea trap is dramatically shifted toward signal transduction and nutrient transport upon insect feeding, with touch hormone signaling and protein secretion prevailing. At the same time, a massive induction of general defense responses is accompanied by the repression of cell death–related genes/processes." https://lnkd.in/eMqKE3X View in LinkedIn

ADAPTED DEFENSE MOLECULES. "Carnivorous sundew plants catch and digest insect prey for their own nutrition. The sundew species Drosera capensis shows a pronounced leaf bending reaction upon prey capture in order to form an ‘outer stomach’. This formation is triggered by jasmonates, phytohormones typically involved in defence reactions against herbivory and wounding." https://lnkd.in/eRtdmBc View in LinkedIn

PUZZLING RANGE. "Genome sizes vary more than 2,300-fold among angiosperms, from that of Paris japonica (2n = 12, 1C = ~149 Gbp) to that of carnivorous Genlisea margaretae (2n = ~40, 1C = ~63 Mbp). The biological significance of this massive variation is puzzling." https://lnkd.in/e4xhW7h View in LinkedIn

CARNIVOROUS PLANT GENOMES. "Large variations in ploidy levels and chromosome sizes have been reported within the carnivorous Droseraceae. The genome contents of carnivorous plants seem to be extremely variable, and the larger genomes tend to have many repetitive sequences and transposable elements." Like higher animals. https://lnkd.in/e4xhW7h View in LinkedIn

MASSIVE GENE PROLIFERATION. "The estimated haploid genome size range from 63 Mbp to >3 Gbp indicate that carnivorous plants have undergone dramatic genome evolution. An explanation for such massive proliferation of genome rearrangements, as observed in plastid genomes of Lentibulariaceae members, may be associated with increasingly relaxed functional constraints due to the heterotrophic lifestyle of carnivorous plants." https://lnkd.in/e4xhW7h View in LinkedIn

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES. "Another explanation is that high nucleotide substitution rates are linked to reactive oxygen species (ROS) generated from the increased respiratory rates needed for the oxidative phosphorylation of ADP to ATP upon movement of trapping devices in carnivorous plants." https://lnkd.in/e4xhW7h View in LinkedIn

"ELECTRICAL PHENOMENA in single plant cells are to a great extent very similar to those occurring in animal cells. All plant cells actively maintain an electrical cell membrane potential difference of −30 to −250 mV between the vacuole or cytosol and the external medium." https://lnkd.in/eVTKbBi View in LinkedIn

PLANT ACTION POTENTIALS. "The majority of cells in different plant species are electrically active and excitable, being able to release and propagate action potentials (APs). These electrical signals even influence principal physiological processes such as photosynthesis and respiration." https://lnkd.in/eVTKbBi View in LinkedIn

PLANT ELECTRICITY. "Electrical signals are believed to mediate intracellular, intercellular and interorgan communication within all plant systematic levels, from algae and bryophytes to vascular plants." https://lnkd.in/eVTKbBi View in LinkedIn