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Aqueous pathways dominate permeation of solutes across Pisum sativum seed coats and mediate solute transport via diffusion and bulk flow of water
Author(s) -
NIEMANN SYLVIA,
BURGHARDT MARKUS,
POPP CHRISTIAN,
RIEDERER MARKUS
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
plant, cell and environment
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.646
H-Index - 200
eISSN - 1365-3040
pISSN - 0140-7791
DOI - 10.1111/pce.12035
Subject(s) - permeation , pisum , aqueous solution , sativum , diffusion , germination , osmotic pressure , chemistry , membrane , botany , biology , organic chemistry , biochemistry , thermodynamics , physics
The permeability of seed coats to solutes either of biological or anthropogenic origin plays a major role in germination, seedling growth and agrochemical seed treatment. Therefore, an experimental setup was designed allowing to investigate the mechanisms of seed coat permeation by steady‐state experiments with isolated seed coats of Pisum sativum . Analysing the permeation of a set of organic model compounds showed that narrow aqueous pathways dominate the movement of solutes across the seed coats as indicated by a good correlation of permeances with the molecular sizes of the compounds and no correlation with their lipophilicity. The application of an osmotic water potential gradient across isolated seed coats leads to an increase in solute transfer indicating that the aqueous pathways form a water‐filled continuum across the seed coat allowing the bulk flow of water.