Calcium beyond the cytosol; regulation of apoplastic and vacuolar calcium is required for plant productivity and stress tolerance

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• Professor Roger Leigh, Director of the Waite Research Institute, University of Adelaide
• Wednesday 13 July 2011, 12:30-13:30
• Large Lecture Theatre, Department of Plant Sciences.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Alex Webb.

Plants often take up nutrients in excess of their immediate needs and store the extra in cell vacuoles. There is good evidence that the nutrient storage pools in different leaf cell-types are compositionally distinct. For instance, phosphate and calcium appear to never co-localise in the same cell whereas magnesium, potassium, chloride and nitrate may share similar cellular locations but can be at very different concentrations in different cells.

We have recently conducted a survey of leaves from 30 phylogenetically distinct species and discovered two “evolutionary conserved” patterns of cell-specific calcium distribution. In grasses, vacuolar calcium is present at high concentrations in epidermal cells but undetectable in mesophyll cells. In contrast, in many eudicot species calcium is at a high concentration in the palisade and spongy mesophyll cells but undetectable in epidermal cells. At present, the mechanisms behind these patterns in Ca distribution, and their physiological significance, are unclear. Such knowledge may be fundamental to our understanding of how plants function and should ultimately allow the nutritional enhancement of crop plants (and consequently fortification of animal and human diets) without adversely affecting crop plant physiology.

This talk is part of the Plant Sciences Talks series.

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• Large Lecture Theatre, Department of Plant Sciences

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