The TTC technique might not appropriately test the physiological stage of plant tissues.

ITHURRART L, BUSSO C, TORRES Y, CARDILLO D

Comodoro Rivadavia

Congreso; XXVI Reunión Argentina de Ecología; 2014

Asociación Argentina de Ecología

The 2,3,5-triphenyltetrazolium chloride (TTC) technique has been used during decades to distinguish between dead and alive tissues (e.g., seeds, meristematic buds). This technique did not consider, however, that dormant (i.e., viable) tissues could exist within those erroneously considered dead tissues, thus being unable to report the true physiological stage of those plant tissues. Development of a procedure able to distinguish between either metabolically active or dormant or dead tissues is then critical. This study develops a procedure to classify plant tissues in a more appropriate physiological stage (i.e., metabolically active, dormant or dead) than the traditional TTC technique. Perennial grass seeds or buds were immersed in a TTC solution to obtain metabolically active (i.e., red or pink staining) or unstained (i.e., either dormant or dead) tissues. TTC-unstained tissues were placed in an Evans`s blue solution to separate those which were dormant from those which were dead. The combined use of the TTC and Evans`s blue technique allowed separation of the study tissues in either metabolically active, dormant or dead. Use of Evans? blue on TTC-unstained seeds and buds allowed to determine that a given percentage of these tissues were not dead but dormant (i.e. viable). Of the TTC-unstained tissues, between 2 and 35% of total grass seeds, and from 19.5 to 42% of all evaluated perennial grass buds, were dormant (i.e., viable, and potentially able to grow out), not dead. A combination of TTC and Evans?s blue techniques allowed a better classification of the physiological stage of plant tissues than the conventional TTC test.