Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 13, 2026

Preparation of Drosophila Central Neurons for in situ Patch Clamping
Published on: October 15, 2012
Fast cell wall softening causes Venus flytrap closure
Jeongeun Ryu1, Mathieu Colombani1, Corentin Mollier1
1Aix-Marseille University, CNRS, IUSTI UMR 7343 and Turing Center for Living Systems, Marseille, France.
None:
Plants can move rapidly without muscles, as seen in the Venus flytrap's snapping lobes-a long-standing puzzle in plant biomechanics. Trap closure involves an elastic instability, but the active mechanical driver has remained elusive. Using in situ hydraulic and mechanical measurements, we identified the motor driving this transition. Closure occurs too quickly to be explained by water transport, revealing a distinct, nonhydraulic mechanism: a rapid (about one second) softening of the epidermal cell wall, releasing elastic energy stored in the trap. This represents the fastest modulation of wall mechanics reported in plants. Our finding reveals a mode of plant motility based on dynamic tuning of material properties, suggesting principles for muscle-free, bioinspired actuation.
More Related Videos
10:28The Encapsulation of Cell-free Transcription and Translation Machinery in Vesicles for the Construction of Cellular Mimics
Published on: October 21, 2013
06:55Simultaneous Recording of Calcium Signals from Identified Neurons and Feeding Behavior of Drosophila melanogaster
Published on: April 26, 2012
Related Concept Videos
Tonicity in Plants
Tonicity in Plants
Tonicity
Tonicity describes the capacity of a cell to lose or gain water depending on the solute...
Tonicity in Animals
Epiphytes, Parasites, and Carnivores
Regulation of Transpiration by Stomata
SNAREs and Membrane Fusion
SNAREs exist in pairs that symmetrically interact and catalyze the fusion of the lipid bilayers in vesicle and target organelle. v-SNARE in the vesicle membrane are single polypeptide chains that bind to a complementary t-SNARE, composed of 2...