Search for: All records

Plants are a vital component of human life on Earth; they provide us with food and essential nutrients as well as the oxygen we breathe. However, the science education community struggles to find ways to make plant processes less abstract and more understandable for learners. In this article we demonstrate how we make plant processes more understandable for learners by observing the behaviors of a specific plant structure, a stoma, which is a microscopic opening that plays a role in the movement of matter into and out of a plant. Recent research across plant-related science fields centers on plant stomata because they protect plants from various environmental strains, including attacks from pathogens. Translating this research into science classroom instruction has not occurred extensively. A key impediment is that few common methods to make stomata visible or demonstrate their dynamic nature to learners are available. The activities we share here make stomata visible utilizing a specific plant, Tradescantia zebrina, and common laboratory equipment. In the first activity, we share how to demonstrate stomata closing and opening by manipulating a combination of these environmental factors. In the second activity, we describe how to create a visual simulation of stomata response to attacks from microorganisms. 

Abstract As a plant hormone, salicylic acid (SA) plays essential roles in plant defense against biotrophic and hemibiotrophic pathogens. Significant progress has been made in understanding the SA biosynthesis pathways and SA-mediated defense signaling networks in the past two decades. Plant defense responses involve rapid and massive transcriptional reprogramming upon the recognition of pathogens. Plant transcription factors and their co-regulators are critical players in establishing a transcription regulatory network and boosting plant immunity. A multitude of transcription factors and epigenetic regulators have been discovered, and their roles in SA-mediated defense responses have been reported. However, our understanding of plant transcriptional networks is still limited. As such, novel genomic tools and bioinformatic techniques will be necessary if we are to fully understand the mechanisms behind plant immunity. Here, we discuss current knowledge, provide an update on the SA biosynthesis pathway, and describe the transcriptional and epigenetic regulation of SA-mediated plant immune responses.