Intercellular communication in plants: Evidence for a rapidly generated, bidirectionally transmitted wound signal

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Abstract
Wounding (whether by excision, abrasion or puncture) elicited rapid, massive and enduring formation of polysomes in aged pea [Pisum sativum cv. Alaska] stems and other mature tissues. The response depended on temperature and severity of wounding but not on water uptake. It occurred in tissues adjacent to, distant from, above and below the site of injury. The kinetics of polysome formation were similar in tissues adjacent to or up to 150 mm distant from the point of injury. The wound-induced increases in protein-synthesizing capacity fo the polysomes both in vivo and in vitro were much greater than the increases in rRNA and poly(A)+RNA. Wounding evokes an almost immediate wound signal that travels rapidly acropetally and basipetally to stimulate the recruitment of preexisting ribosomes onto primarily preexisitng mRNA, forming polysomes with greatly enhanced protein-synthesizing capacity.