Fig. 1

Schematic for bioorthoganal labeling and detection of choline phospholipids in plants. Steps are indicated by arrows, from left to right. In the first step, the propargylcholine label is taken up and biosynthetically incorporated into plant cell membranes to produce phosphatidyl-propargylcholine. In the second step, the plant material is harvested and fixed. The next step is to perform a copper(I)-catalyzed click-chemistry reaction in which a fluorophore (F) such as fluorescein (or Alexa Fluor 594) attached to an azide moiety is added to the terminal alkyne group on phosphatidyl-propargylcholine. In the final step, fluorescence microscopy is used to evaluate the tissue distribution and subcellular localization of choline phospholipids