Definition of symplast in English:
symplast
noun ˈsɪmplastˈsɪmplɑːstˈsimplast
Botany A continuous network of interconnected plant cell protoplasts.
Example sentencesExamples
- Once inside the symplast, radial transport across the root to the central stele and, subsequently, unloading into the xylem are necessary for translocation to the shoot.
- It is possible that a proportion of ammonium fed to maize roots enters the symplast at the endodermis and is incorporated into amino acids within the pericycle which results in it becoming acidotic.
- Instead, it appears that there is a barrier to movement between the post-phloem symplast and the nucellus.
- Despite the presence of acid invertase in the cell wall and intercellular spaces, it suggests that in the first phase of fruit development sucrose is unloaded into the tomato fruit via the symplast.
- Where access to this space becomes restricted by an exodermal resistance, a greater proportion of the total flux of a material may be absorbed at the root periphery and pass from cell to cell via the symplast.
Derivatives
adjective
Botany This accumulation may be apoplastic, symplastic, or both.
Example sentencesExamples
- Radial water transport in roots occurs simultaneously through the symplastic, transcellular and apoplastic pathways.
- In these cases sugar contents declined, possibly limiting translocation as in brown rust-infected barley leaves, in which apoplastic and symplastic sugar concentrations were reduced as export declined.
- It is therefore probable that much of the increase in sugars during sub-zero hardening was symplastic.
- These results suggest that movement of mineral oil in plants is both apoplastic via intercellular spaces and symplastic via plasmodesmata.
Origin
1930s: from German Symplast.