Every living organism needs the element manganese as an essential nutrient. For example, it plays an important role in the splitting of water into oxygen and hydrogen during photosynthesis in plants.
The team identified a particular group of cells in the root of the plant and named it the “manganese sensitive niche.” Unlike all other stem cells, these cells show a special response in response to manganese deficiency: As the deficiency persists, the calcium concentration inside the cells rises and falls several times in succession. Each swing lasts about 30 minutes.
“No one before has observed such multicellular fluctuations in calcium concentration that occur due to the coordinated appearance of calcium signals in individual plant cells,” says one of the study’s authors. Only a few hundred cells together form a signal. Epidermal cells – cells in the outer layer of the root – are the first to start increasing the calcium concentration.
Source: Ferra
