Publications by authors named "Ina Schmitz-Thom"

Homeostasis of the essential micronutrient manganese (Mn) is crucially determined through availability and uptake efficiency in all organisms. Mn deficiency of plants especially occurs in alkaline and calcareous soils, seriously restricting crop yield. However, the mechanisms underlying the sensing and signaling of Mn availability and conferring regulation of Mn uptake await elucidation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Excessive Na in soils inhibits plant growth. Here, we report that Na stress triggers primary calcium signals specifically in a cell group within the root differentiation zone, thus forming a "sodium-sensing niche" in Arabidopsis. The amplitude of this primary calcium signal and the speed of the resulting Ca wave dose-dependently increase with rising Na concentrations, thus providing quantitative information about the stress intensity encountered.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Plants require potassium (K) for essential homeostasis, and understanding how they sense and respond to K availability is crucial for sustainable agriculture.
  • The study identifies a specialized area in plant roots called the K-sensing niche (KSN) where drops in K levels trigger reactive oxygen species (ROS) signals that coordinate responses to K deficiency.
  • The findings reveal a signaling pathway involving CIF peptides and specific receptor complexes that activate processes to enhance K uptake and root maturation, ensuring that plants maintain K homeostasis effectively.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Signaling cross talks between auxin, a regulator of plant development, and Ca2+, a universal second messenger, have been proposed to modulate developmental plasticity in plants. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms are largely unknown. Here, we report that in Arabidopsis roots, auxin elicits specific Ca2+ signaling patterns that spatially coincide with the expression pattern of auxin-regulated genes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Cells can maintain their structure even when facing changes due to growth or environmental stress, but how they sense and respond to damage, especially in plants, is not fully understood.* -
  • The study identifies the receptor kinase FERONIA (FER) in Arabidopsis as essential for root recovery from high salinity stress, suggesting it helps plant cells sense and respond to cell wall damage.* -
  • FER's function involves sensing softening of the cell wall due to salinity, and it engages in signaling that triggers calcium transients to preserve cell-wall integrity, ultimately highlighting a critical role of FER in managing salt-induced cell wall toxicity.*
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In plants, potassium (K ) homeostasis is tightly regulated and established against a concentration gradient to the environment. Despite the identification of Ca -regulated kinases as modulators of K channels, the immediate signaling and adaptation mechanisms of plants to low-K conditions are only partially understood. To assess the occurrence and role of Ca signals in Arabidopsis thaliana roots, we employed ratiometric analyses of Ca dynamics in plants expressing the Ca reporter YC3.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Ca(2+) signatures are central to developmental processes and adaptive responses in plants. However, high-resolution studies of Ca(2+) dynamics using genetically encoded Ca(2+) indicators (GECIs) such as Yellow Cameleon (YC) proteins have so far not been conducted in important model crops such as rice (Oryza sativa). We conducted a comparative study of 35S and ubiquitin-10 (UBQ10) promoter functionality in Arabidopsis thaliana and O.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The significance of cell wall invertase (cwINV) for plant defense was investigated by comparing wild-type tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) Samsun NN (SNN) with plants with RNA interference (RNAi)-mediated repression of cwINV (SNNcwINV). In source leaves of SNNcwINV, the activity of cwINV was repressed by about 90%. Sucrose export and apoplastic carbohydrate levels were significantly reduced, while photosynthesis and dark respiration exhibited little or no change.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF