ABSTRACT
The salt aster (Aster tripolium L.) colonized by the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus Glomus intraradices Sy167 and noncolonized control plants were grown in a greenhouse for nine months with regular fertilization by Hoagland nutrient solution supplemented with 2% NaCl. Mycorrhizal roots showed a high degree of mycorrhizal colonization of 60-70% and formed approximately 25% more dry weight and much less aerenchyma than the nonmycorrhizal controls. Cryosectioning essentially preserved the root cell structures and apparently did not cause significant ion movements within the roots during cuttings. The experimental conditions, however, did not allow to discriminate between fungal and plant structures within the roots. Quantification of proton-induced X-ray emission (PIXE) data revealed that in control roots, Na(+) was mainly concentrated in the outer epidermal and exodermal cells, whereas the Cl(-) concentration was about the same in all cells of the roots. Cross sections of roots colonized by the mycorrhizal fungus did not show this Na(+) gradient in the concentration from outside to inside but contained a much higher percentage of NaCl among the elements determined than the controls. PIXE images are also presented for the four other elements K, P, S, and Ca. Both in colonized and control roots, the concentration of potassium was high, probably for maintaining homoeostasis under salt stress. This is seemingly the first attempt to localize both Na(+) and Cl(-) in a plant tissue by a biophysical method and also demonstrates the usefulness of PIXE analysis for such kind of investigation.
Subject(s)
Aster Plant/chemistry , Elements , Mycorrhizae/chemistry , Plant Roots/chemistry , Protons , Spectrometry, X-Ray EmissionABSTRACT
The energy dependence of the total hadronic cross sections is caused by gluon bremsstrahlung which we treat nonperturbatively. It is located at small transverse distances about 0.3 fm from the valence quarks. The cross section of gluon radiation is predicted to exponentiate and rise with energy as s(delta) with delta = 0.17+/-0. 01. The total cross section also includes a large energy independent Born term which corresponds to no gluon radiation. The calculated total cross section and the slope of elastic scattering are in good agreement with the data.
ABSTRACT
A proton microprobe capable of focusing proton beams with energies up to 6 million electron volts to a spot size of 2 x 2 square micrometers has been used for chemical analysis of small grains of minerals in lunar samples by proton-induced x-ray emission. The proton microprobe is preferable to the electron microprobe for analyzing trace elements whose concentrations are below the detection limit of the latter and for analyzing objects with numerous major and trace elements with a wide range of atomic numbers. Application of the proton microprobe to biological samples is feasible.