TY - JOUR
T1 - An improved, low-cost, hydroponic system for growing Arabidopsis and other plant species under aseptic conditions
AU - Alatorre-Cobos, Fulgencio
AU - Calderón-Vázquez, Carlos
AU - Ibarra-Laclette, Enrique
AU - Yong-Villalobos, Lenin
AU - Pérez-Torres, Claudia Anahí
AU - Oropeza-Aburto, Araceli
AU - Méndez-Bravo, Alfonso
AU - González-Morales, Sandra Isabel
AU - Gutiérrez-Alanís, Dolores
AU - Chacón-López, Alejandra
AU - Peña-Ocaña, Betsy Anaid
AU - Herrera-Estrella, Luis
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was partially funded by the Howard Medical Institute (Grant 55003677) to LHE. FAC is indebted to CONACYT for a PhD fellowship (190577). The authors would like to thank R. Sawers (Langebio) for providing S. viridens seeds, J. H. Valenzuela for P. syringae pv tomato strain, J. Antonio Cisneros-Durán (Cinvestav Unidad Irapuato) for his great help with photography and video in this work, and Flor Zamudio-Hernández and María de J. Ortega-Estrada for microarray and qRT-PCR services. We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their positive comments and meticulous revision for improving the quality of this manuscript.
PY - 2014/3/21
Y1 - 2014/3/21
N2 - Background: Hydroponics is a plant growth system that provides a more precise control of growth media composition. Several hydroponic systems have been reported for Arabidopsis and other model plants. The ease of system set up, cost of the growth system and flexibility to characterize and harvest plant material are features continually improved in new hydroponic system reported. Results: We developed a hydroponic culture system for Arabidopsis and other model plants. This low cost, proficient, and novel system is based on recyclable and sterilizable plastic containers, which are readily available from local suppliers. Our system allows a large-scale manipulation of seedlings. It adapts to different growing treatments and has an extended growth window until adult plants are established. The novel seed-holder also facilitates the transfer and harvest of seedlings. Here we report the use of our hydroponic system to analyze transcriptomic responses of Arabidopsis to nutriment availability and plant/pathogen interactions. Conclusions: The efficiency and functionality of our proposed hydroponic system is demonstrated in nutrient deficiency and pathogenesis experiments. Hydroponically grown Arabidopsis seedlings under long-time inorganic phosphate (Pi) deficiency showed typical changes in root architecture and high expression of marker genes involved in signaling and Pi recycling. Genome-wide transcriptional analysis of gene expression of Arabidopsis roots depleted of Pi by short time periods indicates that genes related to general stress are up-regulated before those specific to Pi signaling and metabolism. Our hydroponic system also proved useful for conducting pathogenesis essays, revealing early transcriptional activation of pathogenesis-related genes.
AB - Background: Hydroponics is a plant growth system that provides a more precise control of growth media composition. Several hydroponic systems have been reported for Arabidopsis and other model plants. The ease of system set up, cost of the growth system and flexibility to characterize and harvest plant material are features continually improved in new hydroponic system reported. Results: We developed a hydroponic culture system for Arabidopsis and other model plants. This low cost, proficient, and novel system is based on recyclable and sterilizable plastic containers, which are readily available from local suppliers. Our system allows a large-scale manipulation of seedlings. It adapts to different growing treatments and has an extended growth window until adult plants are established. The novel seed-holder also facilitates the transfer and harvest of seedlings. Here we report the use of our hydroponic system to analyze transcriptomic responses of Arabidopsis to nutriment availability and plant/pathogen interactions. Conclusions: The efficiency and functionality of our proposed hydroponic system is demonstrated in nutrient deficiency and pathogenesis experiments. Hydroponically grown Arabidopsis seedlings under long-time inorganic phosphate (Pi) deficiency showed typical changes in root architecture and high expression of marker genes involved in signaling and Pi recycling. Genome-wide transcriptional analysis of gene expression of Arabidopsis roots depleted of Pi by short time periods indicates that genes related to general stress are up-regulated before those specific to Pi signaling and metabolism. Our hydroponic system also proved useful for conducting pathogenesis essays, revealing early transcriptional activation of pathogenesis-related genes.
KW - Arabidopsis
KW - Hydroponics
KW - Pathogenesis
KW - Phosphate starvation
KW - Root
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84899151127&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1186/1471-2229-14-69
DO - 10.1186/1471-2229-14-69
M3 - Article
C2 - 24649917
AN - SCOPUS:84899151127
SN - 1471-2229
VL - 14
JO - BMC Plant Biology
JF - BMC Plant Biology
IS - 1
M1 - 69
ER -