Touch-Responsive Behaviors and Gene Expression in Plants - Communication in Plants: Neuronal Aspects of Plant Life - page 256

interpretation that darkness and perhaps the other stimuli that induce
expression of the TCH genes are related in some way. One possibility is that
all these stimuli share the property of causing mechanical perturbations
andinthiswaytriggeracommonmechanosensorypathwaythatleadsto
gene upregulation of expression (Braam 2000).
If the diverse stimuli that trigger TCH upregulation of expression act
throughacommonpathway,thenonewouldexpectthatasingle cis regu-
latory element would be responsible for conferring the complex expression
regulation. Indeed, a 102 base-pair region located upstream of the TCH4
transcriptional start site is sufficient to confer touch, darkness, cold heat
and epi-brassinolide upregulation of expression to reporter genes (Iliev et
al. 2002). Sequences within this region share some similarities to sequences
identified as important for conferring cold and touch inducibility to the
CBF2 gene (Zarka et al. 2003). The mechanism by which these sequences
mayacttoregulategeneexpressioniscurrentlyunknown.
Distinct methods have been used to monitor TCH expression during
plant morphogenesis. TCH ::reporter transgenics have been characterized
in addition to the more direct methods of immunolocalization and reverse
transcription PCR (Sistrunk et al. 1994; Antosiewicz et al. 1995, 1997; Xu et
al. 1995; Delk et al. 2005). In general, TCH expression is enriched at sites that
may be predicted to experience mechanical stress. TCH protein accumu-
lates and/or TCH ::reporter transgenes are expressed in the ruptured seed
coat, branch points, the root-shoot junction, elongating hypocotyls and
roots, and developing trichomes and silique abscission zones. In addition,
plants subjected to enhanced weight on the inflorescence have increased
TCH2 and TCH4 expression (Ko et al. 2004). These data indicate that TCH
expression may not only be upregulated in response to externally applied
mechanical perturbations such as touch, but also by mechanical forces that
become manifest during normal plant morphogenesis.
17.5
Conclusions and Future Prospects
Plants perceive much more of their environment than is often apparent to
the casual observer. Touch can induce profound rapid responses and more
slowly acquired growth alterations. Rapid touch-induced plant movement
in specialized plants is often associated with predation or protection. The
speed of these responses is an essential component of the response in these
situations. Plants that acclimate over their lifetime to touch or wind stimuli
also undergo dramatic touch-induced changes, but these, at least overtly,
occurslowlyovertime.Molecularresponsesinnonspecializedplantscan,
however, occur quite rapidly. In Arabidopsis , changes in gene expression are