Fatty Acid Un-Saturation in the Response of Tomato to Temperature Stress

Plant survival under abiotic stresses, like thermal stress, requires the retaining of structural and functional composition of cell membranes. Among the others factors, maintaining biological membranes fluidity is thought to help improving the resistance to these kinds of stresses. In fact, adjustment of membrane fluidity makes it possible to maintain an environment suitable for the functioning of critical integral proteins during stress. Cold tolerance has been correlated with the degree of unsaturation of fatty acids in the phospholipids and glycolipids composing the membranes. Indeed, plants respond to cold temperatures by releasing α-linolenic acid (18:3) from membranes and significantly increasing tri-unsaturated linolenic acid at low temperature exposition. This observation suggests that possibly the degree of unsaturation of membrane lipid fatty acids is a factor helping also the resistance at high temperatures. However, heating stress has been less investigated and the role of ...