Post 8: a career-related article

Hi everyone! I have to write about an article related to my specialism. Physiology is a specific knowledge! My research deal with plant stress, so I will try to explain an article that describe plant mechanisms to avoid the stress. 

“Photoprotection in plants: a new light on photosystem II damage” is a review article, written in 2011 by Shunichi Takahashi and Murray R. Badger, both from the Australian National University. 

Under certain circumstances, the leaves receive a lot of radiation, and they can be expose to photoinhibition. This problem leads to a minor photosynthetic capacity, thereafter, it will reduce yield (the principal variable on plants). 

Takahashi and Badger explains different mechanisms to avoid photoinhibition: the photoprotection. The most important mechanisms are:

- Paraheliotropism (Fig 1a): some plant species can move their leaves, to intercept less radiation. If the leaves are vertical, the radiation exposition will be minor. 

- Epidermis pigments (Fig 1c): some pigments in the leaf epidermis can serve as screen, so the chloroplasts will be expose to a minor radiation.

- ROS scavening (Fig 1d): This is a detoxification mechanism, because it works when the photoinhibition just begins. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are molecules that are produce by photoinhibition.  Ascorbate can eliminate these molecules, and avoid more damage.

As I said, this article is important because summarize all known plant mechanisms about photoinhibition. You can find this on http://libgen.org/scimag4/10.1016/j.tplants.2010.10.001.pdf 

Figure 1. Photoprotection mechanisms. Takahashi and Badger, 2011.