Thursday, 27 June 2019
Scientists have discovered how plants create networks of air channels – the lungs of the leaf – to transport carbon dioxide (CO2) to their cells.
Botanists have known since the 19th century that leaves have pores – called stomata – and contain an intricate internal network of air channels. But until now it wasn’t understood how those channels form in the right places in order to provide a steady flow of CO2 to every plant cell.
The new study, using ground breaking x-ray imaging undertaken by experts at the University of Nottingham, was led by scientists at the University of Sheffield’s Institute for Sustainable Food. The results have been published in Nature Communications. Genetic manipulation techniques have revealed that the more stomata a leaf has, the more airspace it forms. The channels act like bronchioles – the tiny passages that carry air to the exchange surfaces of human and animal lungs.
Until recently the application of X-ray CT, or CAT scanning, in plant sciences has mainly been focused on visualising the hidden half of the plant – the roots – as they grow in soil. Working with our partners in Sheffield we have now developed the technique to visualise the cellular structure of a plant leaf in 3D – allowing us to see how the complex network of air spaces inside the leaf controls its behaviour. It’s very exciting.
In collaboration with Lancaster University, the team showed that the movement of CO2 through the pores most likely determines the shape and scale of the air channel network.
The challenge of scanning plant leaves
Professor Mooney and his team are experts in scanning and imaging the ‘Hidden Half’ of plants. Imaging plant leaves proved a challenging task.
To obtain high quality images requires precise sample preparation to minimise their movement during the scanning. Developing a new method to achieve this was key to the amazing images we collected on our high resolution CT scanner to enable the work in collaboration with Professor Fleming’s lab in Sheffield.
The discovery marks a major step forward in our understanding of the internal structure of a leaf, and how the function of tissues can influence how they develop – which could have ramifications beyond plant biology, in fields such as evolutionary biology.
The study also shows that wheat plants have been bred by generations of people to have fewer pores on their leaves and fewer air channels, which makes their leaves more dense and allows them to be grown with less water.
This new insight highlights the potential for scientists to make staple crops like wheat even more water-efficient by altering the internal structure of their leaves. This approach is being pioneered by other scientists at the Institute for Sustainable Food, who have developed climate-ready rice and wheat which can survive extreme drought conditions.
Professor Andrew Fleming from the Institute for Sustainable Food at the University of Sheffield said: “Until now, the way plants form their intricate patterns of air channels has remained surprisingly mysterious to plant scientists.
“This major discovery shows that the movement of air through leaves shapes their internal workings – which has implications for the way we think about evolution in plants.
“The fact that humans have already inadvertently influenced the way plants breathe by breeding wheat that uses less water suggests we could target these air channel networks to develop crops that can survive the more extreme droughts we expect to see with climate breakdown.”
Dr Marjorie Lundgren, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Lancaster University, said: “Scientists have suspected for a long time that the development of stomata and the development of air spaces within a leaf are coordinated. However, we weren’t really sure which drove the other. So this started as a ‘what came first, the chicken or the egg?’ question.
“Using a clever set of experiments involving X-ray CT image analyses, our collaborative team answered these questions using species with very different leaf structures. While we show that the development of stomata initiates the expansion of air spaces, we took it one step further to show that the stomata actually need to be exchanging gases in order for the air spaces to expand. This paints a much more interesting story, linked to physiology.”
Notes to editors:
About the University of Nottingham
Ranked 32 in Europe and 16th in the UK by the QS World University Rankings: Europe 2024, the University of Nottingham is a founding member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities. Studying at the University of Nottingham is a life-changing experience, and we pride ourselves on unlocking the potential of our students. We have a pioneering spirit, expressed in the vision of our founder Sir Jesse Boot, which has seen us lead the way in establishing campuses in China and Malaysia - part of a globally connected network of education, research and industrial engagement.
Nottingham was crowned Sports University of the Year by The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2024 – the third time it has been given the honour since 2018 – and by the Daily Mail University Guide 2024.
The university is among the best universities in the UK for the strength of our research, positioned seventh for research power in the UK according to REF 2021. The birthplace of discoveries such as MRI and ibuprofen, our innovations transform lives and tackle global problems such as sustainable food supplies, ending modern slavery, developing greener transport, and reducing reliance on fossil fuels.
The university is a major employer and industry partner - locally and globally - and our graduates are the second most targeted by the UK's top employers, according to The Graduate Market in 2022 report by High Fliers Research.
We lead the Universities for Nottingham initiative, in partnership with Nottingham Trent University, a pioneering collaboration between the city’s two world-class institutions to improve levels of prosperity, opportunity, sustainability, health and wellbeing for residents in the city and region we are proud to call home.
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