Publication:
Membrane behaviour in seeds and other systems at low water content: The various effects of solutes

dc.contributor.author Wolfe, Joseph en_US
dc.contributor.author Bryant, Gary en_US
dc.contributor.author Koster, Karen en_US
dc.date.accessioned 2021-11-25T13:00:09Z
dc.date.available 2021-11-25T13:00:09Z
dc.date.issued 2001 en_US
dc.description.abstract A common feature of desiccation-tolerant organisms, such as orthodox seeds, is the presence of large quantities of sugars, especially di- and oligosaccharides. These sugars may be one component of the suite of adaptations that allow anhydrobiotes to survive the loss of most of their cellular water. This paper describes the physical effects of dehydration on cellular ultrastructure, with particular emphasis on membranes, and explains quantitatively how sugars and other solutes can influence these physical effects. As a result of dehydration, the surfaces of membranes are brought into close approach, which causes physical stresses that can lead to a variety of effects, including demixing of membrane components and fluid-to-gel phase transitions of membrane lipids. The presence of small solutes, such as sugars, between membranes can limit their close approach and, thereby, diminish the physical stresses that cause lipid fluid-to-gel phase transitions to occur during dehydration. Thus, in the presence of intermembrane sugars, the lipid fluid-to-gel phase transition temperature (Tm) does not increase as much as it does in the absence of sugars. Vitrification of the intermembrane sugar solution has the additional effect of adding a mechanical resistance to the lipid phase transition; therefore, when sugars vitrify between fluid phase bilayers, Tm is depressed below its fully hydrated value (To). These effects occur only for solutes small enough to remain in very narrow spaces between membranes at low hydration. Large solutes, such as polymers, may be excluded from such regions and, therefore, do not diminish the physical forces that lead to membrane changes at low hydration. en_US
dc.identifier.issn 0960-2585 en_US
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/38897
dc.language English
dc.language.iso EN en_US
dc.rights CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 en_US
dc.rights.uri https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/au/ en_US
dc.source Legacy MARC en_US
dc.title Membrane behaviour in seeds and other systems at low water content: The various effects of solutes en_US
dc.type Journal Article en
dcterms.accessRights open access
dspace.entity.type Publication en_US
unsw.accessRights.uri https://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2
unsw.description.notePublic The journal Seed Science Research is published by the Cambridge University Press, http://www.cambridge.org/uk/ Author webpage: http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~jw/pubs.html en_US
unsw.relation.faculty Science
unsw.relation.ispartofjournal Seed Science Research en_US
unsw.relation.ispartofpagefrompageto 17-25 en_US
unsw.relation.ispartofvolume 11 en_US
unsw.relation.originalPublicationAffiliation Wolfe, Joseph, Physics, Faculty of Science, UNSW en_US
unsw.relation.originalPublicationAffiliation Bryant, Gary en_US
unsw.relation.originalPublicationAffiliation Koster, Karen en_US
unsw.relation.school School of Physics *
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