Conference on Biophotons 1999 - THE INFLUENCE OF GROWTH STAGE AND STRESS ON KINETICS OF DELAYED ULTRAWEAK BIOLUMINESCENCE OF PICEA ABIES SEEDLINGS

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Conference on Biophotons 1999
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THE INFLUENCE OF GROWTH STAGE AND STRESS ON KINETICS OF DELAYED ULTRAWEAK BIOLUMINESCENCE OF PICEA ABIES SEEDLINGS
L. M. Drinovec, I. Jerman, and G. Lahajnar*.

BION Institute for Bioelectromagnetics and New Biology, Celovška 264, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenija, fax: +386 61 574960, * J. Stefan Institute, Jamova 39, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenija, fax: +386 61 217281

Delayed ultraweak bioluminescence (DUB) is a phenomenon of long-lived photon emission by living organisms after their illumination with white light. DUB was first reported by Popp et all. Later research showed that DUB is a common phenomenon in plants and animals. The kinetics of DUB of Picea abies seedlings was investigated during different stages of development. The DUB fits best the hyperbolic decay (I=I₀/(t+t₀)^m. The measured value of the parameter m lies between 0.8 and 1.4 and can be analyzed in terms of the insulator electron bands model proposed by Mussumeci et al. According to this model different molecules form a composite system with unique emission properties. The DUB emission spectra of isolated chloroplasts and whole cells show that the chloroplasts are the main photon emitters. This fact is confirmed by measurements of the influence of atrazine which causes decoupling of electron transport in thylakoid membrane and results in a change of DUB kinetics. In particular, the effect of atrazine is manifested in an increased parameter m, and with higher doses, in a change of the decay kinetics towards exponential. Our results show enhancement of the DUB intensity during seedling development and chloroplast formation. This fact is in agreement with chloroplasts as the main source of DUB. The changes of DUB during growth manifest mainly in rising of the parameter m. The result may be interpreted as due to changes of etioplasts into chloroplasts and hence due to a corresponding change in the structure of the emission system. We also investigated a possibility of stress detection by DUB measurements. The general stress syndrome in plants results in changes of the operation and structure of chloroplasts and could be detected as a change of energy coupling between molecules. Our results with spruce seedlings under the stress induced by AlCl3 prove the use of DUB for the detection of stress.

References:

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