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Arabidopsis plants perform arithmetic division to prevent starvation at night
Photosynthetic starch reserves that accumulate in Arabidopsis leaves during the day decrease approximately linearly with time at night to support metabolism and growth. We find that the rate of decrease is adjusted to accommodate variation in the time of onset of darkness and starch content, such th...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
2013
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3691572/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23805380 http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.00669 |
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author | Scialdone, Antonio Mugford, Sam T Feike, Doreen Skeffington, Alastair Borrill, Philippa Graf, Alexander Smith, Alison M Howard, Martin |
author_facet | Scialdone, Antonio Mugford, Sam T Feike, Doreen Skeffington, Alastair Borrill, Philippa Graf, Alexander Smith, Alison M Howard, Martin |
author_sort | Scialdone, Antonio |
collection | PubMed |
description | Photosynthetic starch reserves that accumulate in Arabidopsis leaves during the day decrease approximately linearly with time at night to support metabolism and growth. We find that the rate of decrease is adjusted to accommodate variation in the time of onset of darkness and starch content, such that reserves last almost precisely until dawn. Generation of these dynamics therefore requires an arithmetic division computation between the starch content and expected time to dawn. We introduce two novel chemical kinetic models capable of implementing analog arithmetic division. Predictions from the models are successfully tested in plants perturbed by a night-time light period or by mutations in starch degradation pathways. Our experiments indicate which components of the starch degradation apparatus may be important for appropriate arithmetic division. Our results are potentially relevant for any biological system dependent on a food reserve for survival over a predictable time period. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.00669.001 |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3691572 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2013 |
publisher | eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-36915722013-06-26 Arabidopsis plants perform arithmetic division to prevent starvation at night Scialdone, Antonio Mugford, Sam T Feike, Doreen Skeffington, Alastair Borrill, Philippa Graf, Alexander Smith, Alison M Howard, Martin eLife Plant Biology Photosynthetic starch reserves that accumulate in Arabidopsis leaves during the day decrease approximately linearly with time at night to support metabolism and growth. We find that the rate of decrease is adjusted to accommodate variation in the time of onset of darkness and starch content, such that reserves last almost precisely until dawn. Generation of these dynamics therefore requires an arithmetic division computation between the starch content and expected time to dawn. We introduce two novel chemical kinetic models capable of implementing analog arithmetic division. Predictions from the models are successfully tested in plants perturbed by a night-time light period or by mutations in starch degradation pathways. Our experiments indicate which components of the starch degradation apparatus may be important for appropriate arithmetic division. Our results are potentially relevant for any biological system dependent on a food reserve for survival over a predictable time period. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.00669.001 eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2013-06-25 /pmc/articles/PMC3691572/ /pubmed/23805380 http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.00669 Text en Copyright © 2013, Scialdone et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) , which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Plant Biology Scialdone, Antonio Mugford, Sam T Feike, Doreen Skeffington, Alastair Borrill, Philippa Graf, Alexander Smith, Alison M Howard, Martin Arabidopsis plants perform arithmetic division to prevent starvation at night |
title | Arabidopsis plants perform arithmetic division to prevent starvation at night |
title_full | Arabidopsis plants perform arithmetic division to prevent starvation at night |
title_fullStr | Arabidopsis plants perform arithmetic division to prevent starvation at night |
title_full_unstemmed | Arabidopsis plants perform arithmetic division to prevent starvation at night |
title_short | Arabidopsis plants perform arithmetic division to prevent starvation at night |
title_sort | arabidopsis plants perform arithmetic division to prevent starvation at night |
topic | Plant Biology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3691572/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23805380 http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.00669 |
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