Poster: Temperature Responses

Abs # 198: Measuring respiration in Arabidopsis fatty acid mutants.

Presenter:	Hsiao, Yueh-Ju , hsiaoyj@wilkes.edu
Authors	Hsiao, Yueh-Ju  (A)   Lucent, Del  (A)   Terzaghi, William B (A)
Affiliations:	(A): Wilkes University

Fatty acid composition is proposed to affect the fluidity and melting temperature of biological membranes. Membrane fatty acid composition may therefore affect many physiological processes such as photosynthesis and respiration. We are testing the hypothesis that changes in fatty acid composition will affect respiration using Arabidopsis mutants with elevated levels of saturated fatty acids due to defects in unsaturation. To obtain enough material to isolate useful amounts of mitochondria we are preparing root and cell cultures of the mutants fad2-2, fab-1 and ssi-2. We are presently studying the temperature dependence of respiration in intact cultured cells, and learning to extract mitochondria from these cells. We intend to determine the lipid composition and temperature dependence of respiration in mitochondria isolated from these cells. These data will provide useful information on the relationship between fatty acid composition and respiration.