Protoplast: A Valuable Toolbox to Investigate Plant Stress Perception and Response

Abstract

Plants are constantly facing abiotic and biotic stresses. To continue to thrive in their environment, they have developed many sophisticated mechanisms to perceive these stresses and provide an appropriate response. There are many ways to study these stress signals in plant, and among them, protoplasts appear to provide a unique experimental system. As plant cells devoid of cell wall, protoplasts allow observations at the individual cell level. They also offer a prime access to the plasma membrane and an original view on the inside of the cell. In this regard, protoplasts are particularly useful to address essential biological questions regarding stress response, such as protein signaling, ion fluxes, ROS production, and plasma membrane dynamics. Here, the tools associated with protoplasts to comprehend plant stress signaling are overviewed and their potential to decipher plant defense mechanisms is discussed.

Mg–Al LDH nanosheets as a nanotechnological tool in agriculture: an exploratory toxicity evaluation study

“…They are helpful for evaluating primary and transient events at the biomolecular scale after applying external stress. 56,57 Protoplasts are considered a good screening platform to pre-evaluate future treatments and analysis in a target plant, 58 and they have been previously employed as a keystone system in studying the toxicological effect of metals in plants. 59 In this work, A. thaliana protoplasts were isolated and immediately exposed to different concentrations of Mg-Al LDH (from 0 to 1000 ng μL −1 ) Environmental Science: Nano Paper to monitor the percentage of cell death during 24 h of treatment.…”

Pooled effector library screening in protoplasts rapidly identifies novel Avr genes

“…However, optimal conditions may vary depending on various factors including vector size, promoter/terminator activity, R – Avr combination, plant species and protoplast transformation efficiency. An important question is ‘what is the maximum library size that can be screened in this way?’ Given that protoplast transformation is well established in numerous plant species 30 , this platform could be applied to accelerate advances in many critical plant diseases. This will provide molecular tools needed for surveillance of genetic variation at Avr loci in pathogen populations and enable the creation of R–Avr gene atlases 31 to inform breeding and deployment of disease-resistant crops.…”

Molecular Cloning, Subcellular Localization, and Abiotic Stress Induction Analysis of a Polyamine Oxidase Gene from Oryza sativa

“…Te studies were performed on protoplasts isolated from the 11-day-old O. sativa leaves. For calcium-related studies, the protoplast system was used, instead of seedlings due to the issue of permeability of specifc chemicals used in the studies [25,30,31]. Te protoplast obtained was treated with calcium channel ionophore A23187 (50 µM) [25,26], calcium channel blocker verapamil [27], and calcium chelator BAPTA (1,2-bis(oamino phenoxy) ethane-N,N,N′,N′-tetra acetic acid, 2 mM, [26,28] in combination with abiotic stress.…”