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JXB Advance Access originally published online on January 11, 2007
Journal of Experimental Botany 2007 58(5):1071-1082; doi:10.1093/jxb/erl268
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© The Author [2007]. Published by Oxford University Press [on behalf of the Society for Experimental Biology]. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

RESEARCH PAPER

The outermost cuticle of soybean seeds: chemical composition and function during imbibition

Suqin Shao1, Chris J. Meyer2, Fengshan Ma2, Carol A. Peterson2 and Mark A. Bernards1,*

1Environmental Stress Biology Group, Department of Biology, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada N6A 5B7
2Department of Biology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada N2L 3G1

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: bernards{at}uwo.ca

Seeds of different cultivars of Glycine max (L.) Merr. (soybean) have strikingly different rates of water imbibition. Seeds that readily imbibe water are termed ‘soft’, while those that remain non-permeable, even after several days in water, are referred to as ‘hard’, ‘stone’, or ‘impermeable’ seeds. What prevents soybean hard seeds from taking up water? Previous work established that the initial imbibition of soft soybean seeds correlates with the presence of small cracks in the outermost cuticle that covers the seed coat, prompting a detailed analysis of soybean seed coat cutin. In this paper, it is shown that the outermost cuticle of the seed coat has an unusual chemical composition, lacking typical mid-chain-hydroxylated fatty acids but being relatively rich in other types of hydroxylated fatty acids. The cuticle of the impermeable cultivar studied contained a disproportionately high amount of hydroxylated fatty acids relative to that of the permeable ones. Moreover, a brief treatment with hot alkali released the {omega}-hydroxy fatty acid component of the outermost cuticle and created holes in it that caused the seeds to become permeable. This demonstrates that the outermost cuticle of the seed is the critical structure that prevents water uptake by hard seeds.

Key words: Cutin, Glycine max, seed coat permeability, soybean, stone seeds

Received 18 August 2006; Revised 2 November 2006 Accepted 15 November 2006


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[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


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