Saturday, November 8, 2014

Plants Need Suncreen Too!


Plants are constantly exposed to the sun, no doubt they use sunlight to process their food by photosynthesis, but at the same time they need protection form the harmful UV radiations emitted by the sun too. A group of scientists had discovered molecules that shielded the plants from the harmful radiations of the sun. And then researchers from Purdue University reported the mechanism of these natural plant sunscreens.

Timothy Zwier and colleagues from Purdue University noted that plants are exposed to harsh UV rays on the daily basis. These radiations can cause serious damage to the plants DNA, and hinder plant growth. But till date these radiations have never been seen to affect the plant growth. Biochemical tests showed that plants generate special molecules and send them to the outer layer of their leaves to protect themselves.  Researchers reported that these molecules are called sinapate esters, and they block UV B-radiations and prevent it from penetrating deep inside the leaves where it might the affect the regular development of the plants. 
Plants constantly being exposed to UV radiations
 Zwier's team investigated in detail as to what happens to the sinapate esters under UV B-radiations exposure. The research team coaxed the sinapate ester molecules to gas phase and exposed them to the UVB radiation in the laboratory. They saw that the sinapate ester molecules soaked up the UVB radiation at every wavelength hence preventing it from penetrating deep into the leaves. These findings eventually indicated that these molecules do indeed act as the natural sunblock for the plants.

I think it would be great if these molecules could be somehow used in the sunscreen used by humans, as a large number of individuals are being exposed to the UV radiations constantly, which is eventually leading to increasing number of skin cancers patients around the globe. But it is very early to speculate its use for the human population.  


Related Article: Health affects of UV radiations - http://www.who.int/uv/health/en/

3 comments:

  1. Initially this article confused me, but upon reading this article it makes sense. It is obvious that the plants need the sunlight to go through the process of photosynthesis, but the amount of UV radiation never crossed my mind. The Sinapate Esters are indeed a magnificent possession of plants for protection!

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  2. Reading the title really threw me off at first... I had no idea that UV could be so harmful to plants as well. It's awesome that ways of protection for the plants are being discovered. This is pretty cool!

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  3. Too much of anything can kill you and the same goes for plants. Very interesting to read and the possibility of making better, more effective sunscreens for humans is rather exciting for someone like me (pale and covered in freckles, can't go out in the summer without burning haha). But really it makes sense for plants to a barrier to receiving too much sun especially if it would affect the healthy genes (like any from of strong radiation can do) and growth of the plants.

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