Sensitive to contact with plants

2000/08/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Botanika

American researchers have managed to grow the transgenic plant that shines to the touch. The plant shines within 20 minutes of contact. From the affected point blinking spreads quickly to the entire surface and the phenomenon lasts about an hour.

About ten years ago, Rice University of Texas researcher Janet Braan realized that they were sensitive to contact with some plant genes and tried to influence them by hormones. He immediately discovered that the nature of the hormone was not influenced by contact with the hormone. Upon contact with the hormone the gene reacted. At first, if you wanted to see the mechanism, the plant should die, so you proposed to make a plant that blinked. In this way, it could analyze the phenomenon as it was occurring.

Plants seem to have a primitive nervous system sensitive to contact, which helps them adapt to the environment. For example, it has been observed that the plants that are manipulated are often smaller and more resistant, and that those living in very windy areas have similar characteristics. Since plants do not have movement capacity, Janet Bratan believes that they use contact sensitive genes as a mechanism for adaptation to the environment.