Extracting relevant physiological information from polar auxin transport data in Panax ginseng.

BACKGROUND: Measuring polar auxin transport (PAT) in plants and drawing conclusions from the observed transport data is only meaningful if these data are being analysed with a mathematical model which describes PAT. In this report we studied the polar auxin transport in Panax ginseng stems of different age and grown on different substrates. METHODS: We measured polar IAA transport in stems using a radio labelled IAA and analysed the transport data with a mathematical model we developed for Arabidopsis. RESULTS: We found that PAT in ginseng stems, as compared to Arabidopsis inflorescence stems, has a 2-fold lower transport velocity and a 3-fold lower steady state auxin flux. CONCLUSION: We were able to pinpoint two physiological parameters that influenced the observed transport characteristics in ginseng which differ from Arabidopsis, namely an increase in immobilization together with a reduced reflux of IAA from the surrounding tissue back to the transporting cells.

Modelling the dynamics of polar auxin transport in inflorescence stems of Arabidopsis thaliana.

The polar transport of the plant hormone auxin has been the subject of many studies, several involving mathematical modelling. Unfortunately, most of these models have not been experimentally verified. Here we present experimental measurements of long-distance polar auxin transport (PAT) in segments of inflorescence stems of Arabidopsis thaliana together with a descriptive mathematical model that was developed from these data. It is based on a general advection-diffusion equation for auxin density, as suggested by the chemiosmotic theory, but is extended to incorporate both immobilization of auxin and exchange with the surrounding tissue of cells involved in PAT, in order to account for crucial observations. We found that development of the present model assisted effectively in the analysis of experimental observations. As an example, we discuss the analysis of a quadruple mutant for all four AUX1/LAX1-LAX3 influx carriers genes. We found a drastic change in the parameters governing the exchange of PAT channels with the surrounding tissue, whereas the velocity was still of the order of magnitude of the wild type. In addition, the steady-state flux of auxin through the PAT system of the mutant did not exhibit a saturable component, as we found for the wild type, suggesting that the import carriers are responsible for the saturable component in the wild type. In the accompanying Supplementary data available at JXB online, we describe in more detail the data-driven development of the model, review and derive predictions from a mathematical model of the chemiosmotic theory, and explore relationships between parameters in our model and processes and parameters at the cellular level.

Polar auxin transport: an early invention.

In higher plants, cell-to-cell polar auxin transport (PAT) of the phytohormone auxin, indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), generates maxima and minima that direct growth and development. Although IAA is present in all plant phyla, PAT has only been detected in land plants, the earliest being the Bryophytes. Charophyta, a group of freshwater green algae, are among the first multicellular algae with a land plant-like phenotype and are ancestors to land plants. IAA has been detected in members of Charophyta, but its developmental role and the occurrence of PAT are unknown. We show that naphthylphthalamic acid (NPA)-sensitive PAT occurs in internodal cells of Chara corallina. The relatively high velocity (at least 4-5 cm/h) of auxin transport through the giant (3-5 cm) Chara cells does not occur by simple diffusion and is not sensitive to a specific cytoplasmic streaming inhibitor. The results demonstrate that PAT evolved early in multicellular plant life. The giant Chara cells provide a unique new model system to study PAT, as Chara allows the combining of real-time measurements and mathematical modelling with molecular, developmental, cellular, and electrophysiological studies.