School of Life Sciences and State Key Laboratory of Agrobiotechnology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
Sci Rep. 2013;3:1273. doi: 10.1038/srep01273.
Arabidopsis thaliana is a widely used model plant for plant biology research. Under traditional agar-plate culture system (TPG, traditional plant-growing), both plant shoots and roots are exposed to illumination, and roots are grown in sucrose-added medium. This is not a natural environment for the roots and may cause artifact responses. We have developed an improved agar-plate culture system (IPG, improved plant-growing) where shoots are illuminated but roots are grown in darkness without sucrose addition. Compared to TPG, IPG produced plants with significantly less total root length, lateral root length and root hair density, although their primary roots were longer. Root gravitropism, PIN2 (an auxin efflux carrier) abundance, H⁺ efflux or Ca²⁺ influx in root apexes, were weaker in IPG-grown roots than those in TPG-grown roots. We conclude that IPG offers a more natural way to study the root growth and response of Arabidopsis thaliana.
拟南芥是植物生物学研究中广泛使用的模式植物。在传统的琼脂平板培养系统（TPG，传统植物生长）下，植物的茎和根都暴露在光照下，根生长在添加蔗糖的培养基中。这不是根的自然环境，可能会导致人为的反应。我们开发了一种改良的琼脂平板培养系统（IPG，改良植物生长），其中茎部暴露在光照下，但根在黑暗中生长，不添加蔗糖。与 TPG 相比，IPG 培养的植物总根长、侧根长和根毛密度显著减少，但其主根较长。根向地性、PIN2（生长素外排载体）丰度、根尖 H⁺外排或 Ca²⁺内流在 IPG 培养的根中比在 TPG 培养的根中弱。我们得出结论，IPG 为研究拟南芥的根生长和响应提供了一种更自然的方式。
