Growing Potato Tubers in Space

Regulation of sucrose to starch conversion in growing potato tubers.

Growing potato tubers have been used as a model system to investigate the regulation of starch synthesis. Results indicate that sucrose degradation and starch synthesis are controlled via regulatory signals in response to sucrose and oxygen availability. (i) Sucrose leads to a co-ordinated up-regulation of sucrose synthase and ADP-glucose phosphorylase at the transcriptional and post-transcript...

Metabolic activity decreases as an adaptive response to low internal oxygen in growing potato tubers.

Plants lack specialised organs and circulatory systems, and oxygen can fall to low concentrations in metabolically active, dense or bulky tissues. In animals that tolerate hypoxia or anoxia, low oxygen triggers an adaptive inhibition of respiration and metabolic activity. Growing potato tubers were used to investigate whether an analogous response exists in plants. Oxygen concentrations fall be...

Structure of potato tubers formed during spaceflight.

Potato (Solanum tuberosum L. cv. Norland) explants, consisting of a leaf, axillary bud, and small stem segment, were used as a model system to study the influence of spaceflight on the formation of sessile tubers from axillary buds. The explants were flown on the space shuttle Columbia (STS-73, 20 October to 5 November 1995) in the ASTROCULTURE (TM) flight package, which provided a controlled e...

Uniformity index for potato tubers from tps progenies

Stimulation of Wound Reactions in Potato Tubers by Thiabendazole

Thiabendazole (TBZ), an antifungal and antihelmintic benzimidazole derivative, after 6 min treatment with a 0.1 m M aqueous solution enhances C 0 2 release in intact potato tubers for up to two hours. There are also indications for a reduced water permeability of isolated periderm layers from TBZ treated potato tubers. Potato slices (ca. 3 mm thick) or discs (with ca. 5 mm diameter) from potato...