Cuticle mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana L. Heynh.: quantification of cuticular permeability

形成叶/大气界面的植物角质层保护高等陆地植物免受干燥。在过去的几年里，人们已经描述了一系列具有角质层形成缺陷的拟南芥突变体，并发现了与角质层生物合成相关的基因。虽然已经假设角质层缺陷会影响角质层通透性，但尚未开展明确量化角质层突变体的角质层运输特性的基础研究。因此，缺乏令人信服的证据表明这些突变体的角质层通透性受到影响。该项目旨在将作为运输屏障的拟南芥角质层的生理特性与角质层生物合成相关的基因联系起来。这包括与野生型相比，定量测定拟南芥角质层突变体的叶表面运输特性。此外，已确定的运输特性必须与拟南芥突变体角质层化学成分的变化有关。利用模式物种拟南芥，该项目的结果将提供更详细的知识，如何角质层作为运输障碍的影响遗传决定因素的变化。这项研究的结果在植物逆境生理学(植物的逆境耐受性)和农业化学(叶片对杀虫剂的吸收)领域具有重要意义。

The plant cuticle forming the leaf/atmosphere interface protects higher land-living plants from desiccation. In the past years, a series of Arabidopsis mutants with defects in cuticle formation have been described and genes with putative functions in cuticle biosynthesis have been identified. Although, it has been hypothesized that cuticular defects affect cuticular permeability, basic studies quantifying cuticular transport properties of cuticle mutants in an unambiguous way have not been carried out yet. Therefore convincing evidence that cuticular permeability is affected in these mutants is lacking. This project aims at correlating physiological properties of the Arabidopsis cuticle as a transport barrier with the genes involved in cuticle biosynthesis. This includes the quantitative determination of leaf surface transport properties of Arabidopsis cuticle mutants in comparison to the wild type. In addition, determined transport properties have to be related to changes in the chemical composition of cuticles of Arabidopsis mutants. Employing the model species Arabidopsis, results of this project will provide a more detailed knowledge of how cuticular function as a transport barrier is affected by changes of genetic determinants. The outcome of this research is relevant in the fields of plant stress physiology (stress tolerance of plants) and agricultural chemistry (foliar uptake of pesticides).