Symplastic Transport of Carboxyfluorescein in Staminal Hairs of Setcreasea purpurea Is Diffusive and Includes Loss to the Vacuole

The kinetics of symplastic transport in staminal hairs of Setcreasea purpurea was studied. The tip cell of a staminal hair was microinjected with carboxyfluorescein (CF) and the symplastic transport of this CF was videotaped and the digital data analyzed to produce kinetic curves. Using a finite difference equation for diffusion between cells and for loss of dye into the vacuole, kinetic curves were calculated and fitted to the observed data. These curves were matched with data from actual microinjection experiments by adjusting K (the coefficient of intercellular junction diffusion) and L (the coefficient of intracellular loss) until a minimum in the least squares difference between the curves was obtained. (a) Symplastic transport of CF was governed by diffusion through intercellular pores (plasmodesmata) and intracellular loss. Diffusion within the cell cytoplasm was never limiting. (b) Each cell and its plasmodesmata must be considered as its own diffusion system. Therefore, a diffusion coefficient cannot be calculated for an entire chain of cells. (c) The movement through plasmodesmata in either direction was the same since the data are fit by a diffusion equation. (d) Diffusion through the intercellular pores was estimated to be slower than diffusion through similar pores filled with water.