Time for uptake of yeast from medium and its complete digestion in roots

Value 14 days
Organism Tomato Lycopersicon esculentum
Reference Paungfoo-Lonhienne C, Rentsch D, Robatzek S, Webb RI, Sagulenko E, Näsholm T, Schmidt S, Lonhienne TG. Turning the table: plants consume microbes as a source of nutrients. PLoS One. 2010 Jul 305(7):e11915.PubMed ID20689833
Method To examine if plants take up microbes and use them as a nutrient source, researchers incubated roots of intact Arabidopsis and tomato plants with E. coli Bl21 and yeast S. cerevisiae which express the green fluorescent protein ((GFP)E. coli and (GFP)yeast). Hydroponic tomato plants were incubated overnight with GFPyeast. Since expression of GFP in yeast clone TDH3 (YGR192C) is constitutive, monitoring of GFP fluorescence allows an assessment of yeast cells activity.
Comments Three hours after incubation, fluorescing GFPyeast cells were detected at the root surface and inside root cells (Figure 3A, p. e11916). After 3 days, GFPyeast was detected inside roots, with some yeast cells alive and fluorescing, and some non-fluorescing yeast cells displaying an altered shape (Figure 3A). Few yeast cells were fluorescing after 7 days, no GFP signal was detected after 10 days, and root cells contained only debris of yeast cells after 14 days (Figure 3A).
Entered by Uri M
ID 105641