| dc.description.abstract | A major plants vital mechanism relying on sterol, however how it transport from its site of synthesis to site of demand is not well known. So far, endocytic pathway has been studied in plants, which contributes to the transport of sterols. In this study by using fluorescent sterol analogues, we analyze the short- and long-term uptake of sterols into plant cells. The sterols traffic initially to the nuclear envelope and then, over the longer-term, to oil bodies and other membranes. The fluorescent sterols do not initially label endosomes. Inhibiting endocytosis with dominant negative AUX1 overexpression does not inhibit uptake of sterols. We propose a primarily non-endocytic pathway for uptake of sterols in plants that differs somewhat in different cell types. The other part of this study has revealed the role of sterols in the plant growth and development. To understand the importance of sterol for the growth, we applied exogenous sterol mixed with MβCD, which act as a carrier for sterol. Sterols at a higher concentration has shown a significant reduction in the growth of plant, however, it does not affect the growth of already growing plants, which suggest us the use of sterol as potential pre-emergent herbicide. The growth defected plants at a higher concentration of sterol had a phenocopy similar to many of the mutants such as; hyd1, smt1, smt2 and hyd2/fackel of sterol biosynthetic pathway. Our
collected data may suggest that supplied sterols act by negative feedback inhibition on sterol biosynthesis and uptake but only when applied prior to and during germination. Further to test the pre-emerget quality of sterol we grew different seeds like; corn, pea, weed seeds and Arabidospis not only in basic agar media but also in hydroponic system, which we have developed in our lab. Initial experiments show that crop plants and weeds are inhibited in germination and growth when the sterol is included during imbibition. | |
