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Published on: September 17, 2016
Assessing Plant Pigment Regulation in Circadian Experiments
Raquel Esteban1, Víctor Resco de Dios2,3,4, José Ignacio García-Plazaola5
1Department of Plant Biology and Ecology, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Leioa, Spain.
Abstract:
Circadian rhythms affect many aspects of a plant's metabolism including, but not limited to, photosynthesis. Here, we provide a complete protocol for determining changes in the composition of photosynthetic pigments (chlorophyll and carotenoids), and we also consider its implementation within circadian experiments. We describe how to design a circadian experiment with the goal of assessing changes in pigment composition. We then perform two consecutive approaches to track changes in pigment composition: indirect noninvasive estimation of pigment composition (by reflectance or fluorescence) followed by direct pigment analysis (by chromatography or spectrophotometry). Finally, we present several considerations regarding data analyses.
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