Abstract
Silicon (Si) is a biologically important element for plants in the order Poales (Yamamoto et al., 2011; Kido et al., 2015). In rice, Si is mainly deposited in the motor cells and the cell walls of the leaf epidermis. However, the molecular basis of this overall process has not been elucidated. Thus, we propose a protocol for the histochemical staining of the silica body based on specific hydrogen bonding between silanol group and the carboxylate group of crystal violet lactone (Ichimura et al., 2008), as described by Isa et al. (2010), but with minor modifications. This modified protocol can be used for observing Si accumulation during rice development.
Keywords: Rice, Cell wall, Silica body, Crystal violet lactone, Motor cell
Materials and Reagents
Equipment
Procedure
Representative data
Figure 3. Crystal violet lactone staining of transverse section of the rice leaf blade at foliar age 5.2. cs: cortical sclerenchyma, pc: parenchyma. mc: motor cell. Scale bar = 50 µm
Notes
Rice (Oryza sativa L. cv Nipponbare) plants are grown in a growth chamber at 28 °C under a 15/9 h light/dark cycle (light at 150 μmol-2 s-1). This protocol is performed using the fifth leaf blades of rice plants grown in +Si conditions (Kido et al., 2015).
Recipes
Acknowledgments
This protocol has been adapted or modified from a previous study by Isa et al. (2010). This study was supported by the Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS) and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan [a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas “Plant Cell Wall” (No. 24114001, 24114005) to K.N. and a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) (25440124) to R.Y.].
References
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