The symplast of a

plant Plants are the eukaryotes that form the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly Photosynthesis, photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with c ...

is the region enclosed by the

cell membrane The cell membrane (also known as the plasma membrane or cytoplasmic membrane, and historically referred to as the plasmalemma) is a biological membrane that separates and protects the interior of a cell from the outside environment (the extr ...

s, within which water and

solutes In chemistry, a solution is defined by IUPAC as "A liquid or solid phase containing more than one substance, when for convenience one (or more) substance, which is called the solvent, is treated differently from the other substances, which are ...

can

diffuse Diffusion is the net movement of anything (for example, atoms, ions, molecules, energy) generally from a region of higher concentration to a region of lower concentration. Diffusion is driven by a gradient in Gibbs free energy or chemical p ...

freely. By contrast the apoplast is any fluid-filled space within the cell wall and extracellular space. Neighbouring cells are interconnected by microscopic channels known as

plasmodesmata Plasmodesmata (singular: plasmodesma) are microscopic channels which traverse the cell walls of plant cells and some algal cells, enabling transport and communication between them. Plasmodesmata evolved independently in several lineages, and spe ...

that traverse the cell walls. These channels, allow the flow of small molecules such as sugars, amino acids, and ions between cells (from the inner part of one cell to the inner part of the next cell). Larger molecules, including

transcription factor In molecular biology, a transcription factor (TF) (or sequence-specific DNA-binding factor) is a protein that controls the rate of transcription (genetics), transcription of genetics, genetic information from DNA to messenger RNA, by binding t ...

s and plant viruses, can also be transported through with the help of

actin Actin is a family of globular multi-functional proteins that form microfilaments in the cytoskeleton, and the thin filaments in muscle fibrils. It is found in essentially all eukaryotic cells, where it may be present at a concentration of ...

structures. The symplast allows direct cytoplasm-to-cytoplasm flow of water and other nutrients along concentration gradients. In particular, symplastic flow is used in the root systems to bring in nutrients from soil. Nutrient solutes move in this way through three skin layers of the roots: from cells of the ''epidermis'', the outermost layer, through the ''cortex'' into the ''

endodermis The endodermis is the innermost layer of cortex in land plants. It is a cylinder of compact living cells, the radial walls of which are impregnated with hydrophobic substances ( Casparian strip) to restrict apoplastic flow of water to the inside ...

''. Once solutes in the soil water reach the endodermal cells through apoplastic flow, they are forced into the symplastic pathway due to the presence of the Casparian strip. Once the solutes are passively filtered, they eventually reach the pericycle, where they can be moved into the

xylem Xylem is one of the two types of transport tissue (biology), tissue in vascular plants, the other being phloem; both of these are part of the vascular bundle. The basic function of the xylem is to transport water upward from the roots to parts o ...

for long-distance transport.

History

Symplastic transport was first realized by Eduard Tangl in 1879, who also discovered

, a term coined by Eduard Strasburger, 1901. In 1880, Hanstein coined the term symplast. The contrasting terms apoplast and symplast were used together in 1930 by Münch.Pickard, W. F. (2003). The role of cytoplasmic streaming in symplastic transport. ''Plant, Cell & Environment'' 26: 1-15

History

References

See also