Electrochemical signaling in green plants: effects of 2,4-dinitrophenol on variation and action potentials in soybean

Nerve cells in animals and phloem cells in plants share one fundamental property: they possess excitable membranes by which electrical excitations in the form of action potentials can propagate. Action potentials in green plants can be as fast as the action potentials in axons of nervous cells. The presence of the pesticide 2,4-dinitrophenol (DNP) in soil is a most serious environmental problem and has an impact on agriculture and human health. In the present work we show that DNP induces fast action potentials and decreases the variation potential in a soybean. The speed of the propagation of action potentials is up to 2 m/s, and the duration time of single action potentials is typically 20 ms. The automatic measurement of the electrical potential difference can be effectively used in environmental plant physiology, as well as for studying molecular mechanisms of transport processes and the influence of external stimuli on plants. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.