Ethylene-enhanced Ion and Sucrose Efflux in Morning Glory Flower Tissue

Rib tissue segments excised from open flowers or buds of Ipomoea tricolor Cav. and floated on aqueous media responded to ethylene treatment by rolling up after 2 to 3 hours; a simple method for quantitating the rolling up is presented. The rolling up response was temperature- and oxygen-dependent and was critically affected by the pH of the medium. The ethylene concentration giving a half-maximal response was 0.1 mul/l; continuous ethylene treatment was not required for the response as a 1-hour ethylene exposure enhanced rolling up.Rib segments rolling up during ethylene treatment unrolled when transferred to 0.5 m sucrose, indicating that rolling up was due to asymmetric turgor changes in the segments. Compartmental analysis of (36)Cl(-) efflux from rib segments showed a fast and a slow phase; the slow phase, with a half-time of about 6 hours, is tentatively identified as efflux from the vacuolar compartment. During ethylene treatment, the rate of (36)Cl(-) efflux in the slow phase rose markedly as the rolling up response developed. A similar result was obtained with the efflux of (86)Rb(+). The release of (14)C-metabolites, labeled either by a period of (14)CO(2) fixation in darkness or by exposure to (14)C-(U)-glucose, also increased during ethylene-induced rolling up.These results suggest that ethylene causes an increase in membrane permeability in certain cells of the rib tissue.