Preparation and Deposition of Plant Roots for AFM Nanomechanical Measurements

Harinderbir Kaur (1, 2) , Christian Godon (3) , Jean-Marie Teulon (1, 2) , Thierry Desnos (3, 4) , Jean-Luc Pellequer (1, 2)

1 IBS - UMR 5075 - Institut de biologie structurale
2 IBS-MEM - Groupe Microscopie Electronique et Méthodes
3 BIAM - Institut de Biosciences et Biotechnologies d'Aix-Marseille (ex-IBEB)
4 EBMP - Environnement, Bioénergie, Microalgues et Plantes

In general, cell growth is a mechanical process that balances internal and externalstresses allowing or limiting expansion. Plant cells are often compared to“hydraulicmachines”due to the similar concept of balanced counterforces between the primarywall stresses and the turgor pressure. Knowledge of the mechanics of plant root cellsis essential to understand how plant wall works and, therefore, how plants grow. Onemethod for qualitative and quantitative analysis of mechanical properties is atomicforce microscopy (AFM) that measures mechanical properties of living cells or tissuesunder conditions close to relevant physiological environments (Arnould et al., 2017,Kozlova et al., 2019, Milani et al., 2011, 2014, Peaucelle et al., 2012, 2011, Torode et al.,2018, Yakubov et al., 2016, Zdunek and Kurenda, 2013, Zhao et al., 2005). In our recentstudy, AFM has been used to investigate properties of root epidermal cells (Balzergueet al., 2017), which are the cells that form the outermost layer of the root. These epi-dermal cells were studied in situ on living seedlings and were therefore still influ-enced by the inherent multicellular properties of the root, which is an improvementover studies conducted on isolated living cells.This chapter explains and illustrates the different steps required to prepare anddeposit the seedling, and in particular the root tip, of the plant on a glass slideready for nanomechanical measurements by AFM

Domaines: Biomécanique [physics.med-ph]; Botanique

Harinderbir Kaur, Christian Godon, Jean-Marie Teulon, Thierry Desnos, Jean-Luc Pellequer. Preparation and Deposition of Plant Roots for AFM Nanomechanical Measurements. Malgorzata Lekka; Daniel Navajas; Manfred Radmacher; Alessandro Podestà. Mechanics of Cells and Tissues in Diseases, 2, De Gruyter, pp.123 - 136, 2023, Biomedical Applications, 978-3-11-099972-3. ⟨10.1515/9783110989380-010⟩. ⟨hal-04103315⟩