Pith cells of poplar contain photosynthetically active chloroplasts

✍ Scribed by Barbara Cleve; Christoph Forreiter; Jörg J. Sauter; Klaus Apel

• Book ID: 104661044
• Publisher: Springer-Verlag
• Year: 1993
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 711 KB
• Volume: 189
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0032-0935
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00201345

✦ Synopsis

Pith cells of young poplar (Populus x canadensis Moench) twigs were found to contain chlorophylls a and b. In addition, it was shown that pith cells also have a considerable amount of light-harvesting chlorophyll a/b protein (LHCP), which was identified by Western blotting and localized by immunogold labelling of ultrathin sections. The data strongly indicate that these cells, though they are completely covered by wood and bark and thus are accessible only to very low amounts of light, possess a functionally active photosynthetic apparatus. Evidence for this was found by feeding isolated longitudinal sections of pith with radioactively labelled carbon dioxide and exposing them to light. After incubation, reduced carbohydrates could be detected by thinlayer chromatography, indicating that photosynthesis occurs.