[Plant-education] Re: Potato disc respiration lab

[zog]

Another possible reason why there are minimal differences in
respiration of fresh and aged potato dics is that stored potato tubers
are usually treated with a sprout-inhibiting chemical, chlorpropham
(CIPC). Chlorpropham reduces the respiration rate of stored potato
tubers (Blenkinsop et al. 2002).

Chlorpropham inhibits cell division so is not applied in storage
immediately or it would interfere with normal wound healing. Potato
tuber discs are a model system to study wound healing (Lulai et al.
2008). Most potato tuber disc respiration studies seem to use tubers
that were not purchased from a supermarket (Lulai et al. 2008).

You might try using organic potatoes that would not have been treated
with chlorpropham.

David R. Hershey


References

Blenkinsop, R.W., Copp, L.J.,Yada, R.Y. and Marangoni, A.G. 2002.
Effect of chlorpropham (CIPC) on carbohydrate metabolism of potato
tubers during storage. Food Research International 35: 651-655.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0963-9969(01)00168-5

Lulai, E.C., Suttle, J.C. and Pederson. S.M. 2008. Regulatory
involvement of abscisic acid in potato tuber wound-healing. Journal of
Experimental Botany 59:1175-1186.
http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/ern019v1