[Investigations on the Kinetics of Ion Uptake into the Cytoplasm of Mnium Leaf Cells by Means of Microautoradiography and Electron Probe X-ray Microanalyser]

Methods of quantitative microautoradiography are described. The kinetics of ion uptake into the cytoplasm (including the plastids and other organelles) were investigated by means of microautoradiography and electron probe X-ray microanalyser.The results of microautoradiography show that under our experimental conditions at the end of the experiments the cytoplasm contains much more label per unit of volume than the vacuoles. The kinetics of this filling - up of the cytoplasm correspond to the system-1 isotherm of ion uptake. It must be concluded from the literature that system-1 reflects the process filling up the cytoplasm (=transport through the plasmalemma). The kinetic data reported here describe directly the actual filling - up of the cytoplasmic phase. For this reason the coincidence of kinetic features such as the hyperbolic shape of the rate versus concentration curves in both instances is of interest for the general model of ion uptake into cells of higher plants. The time course of the filling of the cytoplasm is dependent on the external concentration.Similar kinetic data are obtained with the electron probe X-ray microanalyser.The usefulness of a parallel application of microautoradiographic and electron probe X-ray microanalyser techniques in kinetic studies of transport is discussed.