Plant Physiology 89:977-981 (1989)
© 1989 American Society of Plant Biologists
Environmental and Stress Physiology
The Glassy State in Corn Embryos 1
Robert J. Williams and
A. Carl Leopold
American Red Cross Holland Biomedical R&D Laboratories, Rockville, Maryland 20855,
Boyce Thompson Institute, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853
The possibility is examined whether seeds may survive the desiccated state in part by vitrification, or the formation of a glassy state. Embryos excised from viable corn (Zea mays L.) seeds at low moisture contents show a series of low temperature first- and second-order phase transitions in the differential scanning calorimeter. These embryos produce normal seedlings if moistened. The thermal events can be duplicated almost entirely in both extracted lipids and purified commercial corn oil. They are therefore associated primarily with these bulk lipids, since membrane phospholipids are present in too small an amount to produce a detectable signal. When the bulk lipids have been extracted, a glass transition appears in the remaining material. At low water contents, it occurs above +40°C and systematically falls to below –60°C as the water content of the embryo rises to 20%. These data are consistent with our hypothesis that the desiccated state in seeds is a glassy state, and that imbibition of water reduces the glass transition temperature below ambient, allowing biochemical activity to resume.
1 Supported in part by National Institutes of Health grant GM 17959 and by National Science Foundation grant DMB 8505491.
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