LAUSR

Understanding plant adaptation mechanisms to prolonged water immersion provides options for genetic modification of existing crops to create cultivars tolerant towards periodic flooding. An important advancement in understanding flooding adaptation would be to elucidate mechanisms such as aerenchyma air-space formation induced by hypoxic conditions consistent with prolonged water immersion. Aerenchyma formation occurs through programmed cell death (PCD) which may entail the chemical modification of pectic polysaccharides in root tissue cell walls via de-methyl esterification that enables cell wall degradation via enzymatic activity [1]. In this study, three Fabaceae species known to produce cavities in hypoxic conditions Pisum sativum (green pea), Cicer arietinum (chickpea), and Phaseolus coccineus (scarlet runner bean) – were utilized to investigate the chemical modification of pectin in root vascular cells during aerenchyma formation.