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Related Concept Videos

Tonicity in Plants00:53

Tonicity in Plants

Tonicity describes the capacity of a cell to lose or gain water. It depends on the quantity of solute that does not penetrate the membrane. Tonicity delimits the magnitude and direction of osmosis and results in three possible scenarios that alter the volume of a cell: hypertonicity, hypotonicity, and isotonicity. Due to differences in structure and physiology, tonicity of plant cells is different from that of animal cells in some scenarios.Plants and Hypotonic EnvironmentsUnlike animal cells,...
Tonicity in Plants01:20

Tonicity in Plants

Plant cells maintain appropriate osmotic balance in extreme conditions. For instance, plants in dry environments store water in vacuoles, limit the opening of their stoma, and have thick, waxy cuticles to prevent unnecessary water loss. Some species of plants that live in salty environments store salt in their roots. As a result, water osmosis occurs in the root from the surrounding soil.
Tonicity
Tonicity describes the capacity of a cell to lose or gain water depending on the solute...
Tonicity in Animals01:16

Tonicity in Animals

Tonicity describes the amount of solute in a solution. The measure of the tonicity of a solution, or the total amount of solutes dissolved in a specific amount of solution, is called its osmolarity. Three terms—hypotonic, isotonic, and hypertonic—are used to relate the osmolarity of a cell to the osmolarity of the extracellular fluid that contains the cells. In a hypotonic solution, such as tap water, the extracellular fluid has a lower concentration of solutes than the fluid inside the cell,...
Epiphytes, Parasites, and Carnivores02:40

Epiphytes, Parasites, and Carnivores

Plants often form mutualistic relationships with soil-dwelling fungi or bacteria to enhance their roots’ nutrient uptake ability. Root-colonizing fungi (e.g., mycorrhizae) increase a plant’s root surface area, which promotes nutrient absorption. While root-colonizing, nitrogen-fixing bacteria (e.g., rhizobia) convert atmospheric nitrogen (N2) into ammonia (NH3), making nitrogen available to plants for various biological functions. For example, nitrogen is essential for the biosynthesis of the...
Regulation of Transpiration by Stomata02:04

Regulation of Transpiration by Stomata

During photosynthesis, plants acquire the necessary carbon dioxide and release the produced oxygen back into the atmosphere. Openings in the epidermis of plant leaves is the site of this exchange of gasses. A single opening is called a stoma—derived from the Greek word for “mouth.” Stomata open and close in response to a variety of environmental cues.
SNAREs and Membrane Fusion01:43

SNAREs and Membrane Fusion

Once a transport vesicle has recognized its target organelle, the vesicular membrane needs to fuse with the target membrane to unload the cargo. Transmembrane proteins called SNAREs present on organelle membranes and their vesicles, mediate vesicle 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...

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Updated: Jun 13, 2026

Preparation of Drosophila Central Neurons for in situ Patch Clamping
08:27

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.

Science (New York, N.Y.)
|June 11, 2026
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Venus flytraps snap shut using a rapid cell wall softening mechanism, not water transport. This discovery reveals a new type of plant movement based on dynamic material property tuning for muscle-free actuation.

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Area of Science:

  • Plant biomechanics
  • Plant cell wall mechanics
  • Bioinspired actuation

Background:

  • Plants exhibit rapid movement, like the Venus flytrap's closure, without muscles, a phenomenon not fully understood.
  • The active mechanical driver for rapid plant movements, such as Venus flytrap closure, has remained elusive.
  • Previous hypotheses often involved water transport, which is too slow to explain the observed speeds.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To identify the active mechanical driver behind the Venus flytrap's rapid trap closure.
  • To elucidate the mechanism enabling rapid plant motility.
  • To explore principles for muscle-free, bioinspired actuation.

Main Methods:

  • In situ hydraulic and mechanical measurements were employed.
  • The study focused on analyzing the epidermal cell wall dynamics during trap closure.
  • Experimental data were used to differentiate between hydraulic and nonhydraulic mechanisms.

Main Results:

  • Plant trap closure is driven by a rapid (approx. 1 second) softening of the epidermal cell wall.
  • This softening releases stored elastic energy, causing the trap to snap shut.
  • The mechanism is nonhydraulic, occurring too quickly for water transport to be the cause.
  • This represents the fastest modulation of plant cell wall mechanics reported to date.

Conclusions:

  • Plant motility can be achieved through dynamic tuning of material properties, specifically cell wall mechanics.
  • A nonhydraulic mechanism involving rapid cell wall softening drives Venus flytrap closure.
  • These findings offer insights into muscle-free, bioinspired actuation principles for engineering applications.