1999, Weinberger et al. 1999, Küpper et al. 2001, 2002, JQ1 chemical structure Potin et al. 2002, Weinberger et al. 2007). On the other hand, the wound-induced oxidative burst may have a different mechanism than that of receptor-mediated pathogen or damage recognition

in that some ROS may arise due to the cellular trauma produced by injury. Specifically, ROS production may be an unavoidable byproduct of the disruption of electron transport chains during wounding. For example, it has been suggested that some ROS produced by wounded Arabidopsis thaliana may be derived from disrupted photosynthetic electron transport (Morker and Roberts 2011). Whether the source of ROS during macroalgal wounding is disrupted electron transport or a receptor-mediated enzymatic process controlled by pathogen or damage recognition systems, the functions (i.e., pathogen defense and signaling) are likely to be the same. MLN8237 To extend our understanding of the macroalgal oxidative burst elicited by direct wounding, we investigated for the first time the wound response of Antarctic macrophytes. As in the two

existing studies of macroalgal wounding (Collén and Pedersén 1994, Ross et al. 2006), we chose not to remove naturally occurring microorganisms from the algae before investigation and therefore it was not

possible to decouple Rutecarpine the effects of wounding alone from the response to microorganisms during wounding. Microorganisms are present in natural systems during wounding, and removing biofilms may unnaturally modify the wound response. Our objective was to survey common macroalgae in a macroalgal-dominated ecosystem on the Western Antarctic Peninsula for their ability to respond to wounding with an oxidative burst. Palmaria decipiens (Reinsch) Ricker, the only macroalgal species included in our study that is palatable to sympatric amphipod grazers as fresh thallus (Amsler et al. 2009, Aumack et al. 2010, Bucolo et al. 2011), was also tested in response to grazing by the omnivorous amphipod Gondogeneia antarctica. Here, we report that cellular production and/or release of strong oxidants was a common response to scratch and excision wounds and (where tested) natural grazing among the 13 species of Antarctic macroalgae investigated and we characterize the nature and kinetics of strong oxidant release in a subset of these species. Experiments were conducted at U.S. Palmer Station located on Anvers Island off the central coast of the Western Antarctic Peninsula at (64°46′ S, 64°03′ W) between February and May in both 2010 and 2011.