acid growth

The researchers suspected that such 'acid growth' could be at work in the fly-trap.

Acid growth, not turgor pressure, moves the Venus fly-trap.

The rapid acid growth allows the sundew tentacles to bend, aiding in the retention and digestion of prey.

Acid growth refers to the ability of plant cells and plant cell walls to elongate or expand quickly at low (acidic) pH.

Meanwhile, sundews are active flypaper traps whose leaves undergo rapid acid growth, which is an expansion of individual cells as opposed to cell division.

During acid growth, plant cells enlarge rapidly because the cell walls are made more extensible by expansin, a pH-dependent wall-loosening protein.

Sulfuric Acid Growth For example, more sulfuric acid is produced in the United States every year than any other industrial chemical.

These cells respond by pumping out ions, which may either cause water to follow by osmosis (collapsing the cells in the midrib) or cause rapid acid growth.

Primary cell walls characteristically extend (grow) by a mechanism called acid growth, which involves turgor-driven movement of the strong cellulose microfibrils within the weaker hemicellulose/pectin matrix, catalyzed by expansin proteins.

However, the acid growth hypothesis does not by itself account for the increased synthesis and transport of cell wall precursors and secretory activity in the Golgi system that accompany and sustain auxin-promoted cell expansion.

Investigators have observed an action potential and changes in leaf turgor that accompany the reflex, which is due to the rapid elongation of individual cells, commonly termed acid growth although it does not involve cell division.

Expansins were originally discovered as mediators of acid growth, which refers to the widespread characteristic of growing plant cell walls to expand faster at low (acidic) pH than at neutral pH.

The acid growth theory states that individual cells in the outer layers of the lobes and midrib rapidly move H (hydrogen ions) into their cell walls, lowering the pH and loosening the extracellular components, which allows them to swell rapidly by osmosis, thus elongating and changing the shape of the trap lobe.