A “drying” Trichome

Dec 18, 2016 • 10:17 AM UTC

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140x Magnification

Microorganisms

Manu Prakash

I am a faculty at Stanford and run the Prakash Lab at Department of Bioengineering at Stanford University. Foldscope community is at the heart of our Frugal Science movement - and I can not tell you how proud I am of this community and grassroots movement. Find our work here: http://prakashlab.stanford.edu

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Do cells dry out? That would not be a good thing. Take plant cells for example – exposed to the environment all the time; what if the cells just lost all the water and dried out. That’s the puzzle we will explore today.
On a walk in the early morning;

I came across a plant leaf with little “living hairs” sticking out.

If you squint your eye; just the right way – you can almost see this little hair sticking out everywhere from the leaf.

So it was time to Foldscope. I saw some beautiful cell walls and leaf cells; all packed like a giant mesh of foam.

Most cells in the plant tissue have neighbors – and I could see how some of these neighbors might protect a cell from the elements. But what about those that are sticking out – quiet literally. As the famous Chinese/Japanese saying goes – the nail that sticks out gets hammered first. So; the question is – how does this Trichome handle all the environmental conditions that drammqtically change – while it has no neighbors to help them survive.
Here is the Trichome; setup with a time lapse imaging (one image every 5 seconds – played back at 20fps; filmed using Foldscope 140x, iPhone and lapse-it app).

First – you should notice a line of cells; one after the other – almost like a building – brick by brick. The base is attached to the leaf.
As you can see; the cells literally crumple and buckle and collapse inwards. Probably because they are loosing water as it evaporates. In the same time; cells in the leaf are not so dramatically affected.
So that begs a questions – how do Trichomes survive in such harsh conditions. A mystery for another day..
Cheers
Manu