Potato disc respiration lab

[Bob Wise-2]

We have been using the potato disc respiration lab from Carol Reiss's
plant physiology lab manual for the last 4 or 5 years and it just
hasn't worked very well for us at all.

In brief, the protocol is to punch out two sets of small discs of
tuber tissue.  One set is fresh and one is aged for 24 hr to induce
the alternative oxidase.  Discs are then immersed in a redox-sensitve
dye in the presence or absence of KCN or an uncoupler.  Expected
results are more cyanide-resistant respiration in the aged discs than
in the fresh and a higher rate of dye reduction in the presence of
the uncoupler.

We generally get extremely average results.  Aging does very little
to any of the rates.  KCN tends to reduce rates a little bit.  The
uncoupler increases rate a little, sometimes.

Does anyone have experience with this exercise?  I would love to find
out what we are doing wrong.

Bob

p.s.  Or does anyone have Carol's email address?  I can't find it anywhere.
--
Robert R. Wise
Dept. of Biology
UW Oshkosh
800 Algoma Blvd
Oshkosh, WI 54901
[phone] (tel)
[phone] (fax)
Have a look at The Structure and Function of Plastids at
http://www.life.uiuc.edu/govindjee/newbook/Vol%2023.html

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[Carmen-18]

Hi everyone,

I teach high school Biology and would like to use Attenborough's Private
Life of Plants series with my classes.

Unfortunately, I have only found Region 2 versions of the DVD available for
sale.  Does anyone know of a source for purchasing a Region 1 version of the
series or a downloadable version I could show my students?
Thanks in advance for any assistance you can provide.

Sincerely,
Carmen Vanegas

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[Larry D. Noodén]

I would check PBS TV sales outlet at:
<http://www.shoppbs.org/home/index.jsp>

for this and other videos.  If they do not list it, you might e-mail them.

Much as I love plants, the series is rather long, so you may want to break
it up or  use only parts.

--On Wednesday, January 21, 2009 6:25 PM -0600 Carmen <gavi0022@...>
wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> I teach high school Biology and would like to use Attenborough's Private
> Life of Plants series with my classes.
>
> Unfortunately, I have only found Region 2 versions of the DVD available
> for sale.  Does anyone know of a source for purchasing a Region 1 version
> of the series or a downloadable version I could show my students?
> Thanks in advance for any assistance you can provide.
>
> Sincerely,
> Carmen Vanegas
> _______________________________________________
> Plant-ed mailing list
> Plant-ed@...
> http://www.bio.net/biomail/listinfo/plant-ed
>
>

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[Carrie DeJaco]

I had the same problem!
I finally found a version of it, I believe, in the Carolina catalog.  It
is marketed as an "educational" version and is broken up into sections
with little "questions to think about" or something like that.  I just
looked on their website and didn't find it, but found others that seem
to be in that same series.  I do believe I had a hard time finding it
online, but got very excited when I found it in their print catalog.
Sexual Encounters of the Floral Kind is also excellent, if you can't
find the Private Life.

Carrie DeJaco


-----Original Message-----
From: plant-ed-bounces@...
[mailto:plant-ed-bounces@...] On Behalf Of Carmen
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2009 7:25 PM
To: Plant Ed
Subject: [Plant-education] Source for Private Life of Plants DVD

Hi everyone,

I teach high school Biology and would like to use Attenborough's Private

Life of Plants series with my classes.

Unfortunately, I have only found Region 2 versions of the DVD available
for
sale.  Does anyone know of a source for purchasing a Region 1 version of
the
series or a downloadable version I could show my students?
Thanks in advance for any assistance you can provide.

Sincerely,
Carmen Vanegas

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[David R. Hershey]

I don't have access to Carol Reiss's lab manual at the moment but
there is a lot of older potato disc respiration literature online.

The respiration rate in aged discs can be limited by lack of oxygen,
which can reduce any differences between fresh and aged tissue (Figure
4 in MacDonald, 1967). MacDonald (1967) also recommended discs no
greater than 1 mm thickness because diffusion limits oxygen movement
to internal cells.

Temperature also has a major effect on the respiration rate (Figure 5
of MacDonald, 1967). MacDonald (1967, 1968) aged his discs at 25 C for
22 hours and seemed to prefer 30 C for the respiration experiments.

References

MacDonald, I.R. 1967. Oxygen Tension a Determining Factor in the
Respiration of Potato Disks of Varying Thickness. Plant Physiology 42:
227-232.
http://www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/reprint/42/2/227.pdf

MacDonald, I.R. 1968. Further Evidence of Oxygen Diffusion as the
Determining Factor in the Relation between Disk Thickness and
Respiration of Potato Tissue. Plant Physiology 43: 274-28.
http://www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/reprint/43/2/274.pdf


David R. Hershey

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