Turning up and up

2002/05/09 Elhuyar Zientzia

• Botanika
• Genetika

Climbing plants have the ability to ascend in trees, rocks and walls, turning or winding them. An example of this is the needle or goat pants in the image. It is known that the fibers of the cell walls of these plants are distributed in a special way and thanks to it they rise. But why are cells organized like this?

According to the journal Nature, researchers at the Nara Institute of Science and Technology in Japan believe that the key is a gene mutation. To this conclusion they have come after the analysis of some special plants of the species Arabidopsis. Arabidopsis plants usually go straight into the sun, but those with defective alpha-tubulin protein turn left. In fact, these proteins come together to form microtubules and they are responsible for the proper construction of the cell wall. However, the microtubules of the aquasides lean to the right, so the cell walls grow incorrectly and the plant rolls to the left. Researchers have found that this error is a consequence of mutation of some genes and may be an indication of plant asymmetry.