Real-time visualization of plant-plant communications through airborne volatiles
Plants emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into the atmosphere upon mechanical damages or insect attacks. Undamaged neighboring plants sense the released VOCs as danger cues to activate defense responses against upcoming ...
A research team, led by Professor Masatsugu Toyota (Saitama University, Japan), visualized plant-plant communications via VOCs in real time and revealed how VOCs are taken up by plants, initiating Ca2+-dependent defense responses against future threats.
This groundbreaking research is published in Nature Communications. Yuri Aratani and Takuya Uemura led the work as a Ph.D. student and a postdoctoral researcher, respectively, in Toyota's lab and collaborated with Professor Kenji Matsui at Yamaguchi University, Japan.
"We constructed equipment to pump VOCs emitted from plants fed by caterpillars onto undamaged neighboring plants and combined it with a wild-field, real-time fluorescent imaging system," says Toyota.
This innovative setup visualized bursts of fluorescence spreading in a mustard plant Arabidopsis thaliana after exposure to VOCs emitted from the insect-damaged plants. The plants create fluorescent protein sensors for intracellular Ca2+ and therefore, changes in intracellular Ca2+ concentration can be monitored by observing changes in fluorescence.
"In addition to insect attacks, VOCs released from manually smashed leaves induced Ca2+ signals in undamaged neighboring plants," says Toyota.
Plants release VOCs into the atmosphere when damaged by insects. Intact neighboring plants sense VOCs and activate pre-emptive defense responses against the insects. Credit: Masatsugu Toyota/Saitama University
Left panel: Equipment for exposing intact Arabidopsis to VOCs emitted by insect-damaged plants (dashed arrow). Right panel: Ca2+ signals (yellow arrowheads, 600 and 1200 s) were induced by VOCs released from insect-damaged plants (dashed arrow). Credit: Masatsugu Toyota/Saitama University