Figure 2

Comparisons of Arabidopsis shoot growth kinetics and protoplast transformation efficiency between soil and hydroponics system. A) Shoot biomass during vegetative growth phase of Arabidopsis Col-0 is equivalent between soil-grown and hydroponically-grown plants under short-day photoperiod (8 h:16 h) until seven weeks post-germination. Mean ± SD (n = 6 plants per timepoint, per condition). No significant differences were found between growth conditions at each timepoint using a t-test (P < 0.01). B) Transfection efficiency of Arabidopsis mesophyll protoplasts were determined by fluorescence microscopy comparing two quantities (5 μg and 10 μg) of two sGFP-expressing plasmids under a single CaMV 35S promoter, pHBT-sGFP(S65T)-NOS (GenBank accession number: EF090408) [25] and pGWB406 (GenBank accession number: AB294430) [37] of 4.2 kb and 12.4 kb, respectively as per Conn et al. [20]. For each condition n = 5 independent transformations, each with cell counts > 100 protoplasts. Data presented as the proportion of GFP-expressing cells; Mean + SEM. Asterisks indicate significant difference between soil and hydroponics derived protoplasts within each condition (P < 0.01).