Measurement of oxygen status in Arabidopsis leaves undergoing the hypersensitive response during Pseudomonas infection

Abstract

When plants are infected with pathogens they defend themselves via various processes. Once such process is the development of the hypersensitive response (HR), a kind of programmed cell death (PCD), in which localized cell death takes place in order to prevent pathogen spread to other part of tissue. The Arabidopsis and Pseudomonas syringae system is one of the best known examples to study the HR. Here we used the VisiSens™ oxygen-imaging system to investigate oxygen distributions in Arabidopsis leaves infected with an avirulent strain of P. syringae and undergoing the hypersensitive response. Using this method we observed a change in oxygen status at 6 h post-infection and a drop in oxygen levels at 24 h after infection.