Effects of freezing and cold acclimation on the plasma membrane of isolated protoplasts

Our goal is to provide a mechanistic understanding of the cellular and molecular aspects of freezing injury and cold acclimation from a perspective of the structural and functional integrity of the plasma membrane -- the primary site of freezing injury in winter cereals. We have utilized protoplasts isolated from leaves of winter rye (Secale cereale L. cv Puma) to study the cryobehavior of the plasma membrane during a freeze/thaw cycle. The focus of our current studies is on lesions in the plasma membrane that result from severe freeze-induced dehydration and result in the alteration of the semipermeable characteristics of the plasma membrane so that the protoplasts are osmotically unresponsive. In protoplasts isolated from non-acclimated rye leaves (NA protoplasts), injury is associated with the formation of aparticulate domains in the plasma membrane, aparticulate lamellae subtending the plasma membrane, and lamellar-to-hexagonal II phase transitions in the plasma membrane and the subtending lamellae. However, lamellar-to-hexagonal II phase transitions are not observed following severe dehydration of protoplasts isolated from cold-acclimated rye leaves (ACC protoplasts). Rather, injury is associated with the fracture-jump lesion,'' which, in freeze-fracture electron microscopy studies, is manifested as localized deviations in the fracture face of the plasma membrane. The fracture plane jumps'' from the plasma membrane to either subtending aparticulate lamellae or aparticulate regions of various endomembranes (predominantly chloroplast envelopes) that are in close apposition with the plasma membrane

Dynamics and precision of thermoregulatory responses of eastern skunk cabbage Symplocarpus foetidus.

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