Using the Automated Botanical Contact Device (ABCD) to Deliver Reproducible, Intermittent Touch Stimulation to Plants.

Despite mechanical stimulation having profound effects on plant growth and development and modulating responses to many other stimuli, including to gravity, much of the molecular machinery triggering plant mechanical responses remains unknown. This gap in our knowledge arises in part from difficulties in applying reproducible, long-term touch stimulation to plants. We describe the design and implementation of the Automated Botanical Contact Device (ABCD) that applies intermittent, controlled, and highly reproducible mechanical stimulation by drawing a plastic sheet across experimental plants.

Tonoplast-localized Ca pumps regulate Ca signals during pattern-triggered immunity in .

One of the major events of early plant immune responses is a rapid influx of Ca into the cytosol following pathogen recognition. Indeed, changes in cytosolic Ca are recognized as ubiquitous elements of cellular signaling networks and are thought to encode stimulus-specific information in their duration, amplitude, and frequency. Despite the wealth of observations showing that the bacterial elicitor peptide flg22 triggers Ca transients, there remain limited data defining the molecular identities of Ca transporters involved in shaping the cellular Ca dynamics during the triggering of the defense response network.