1996 Volume 58 Issue 6 Pages 31-38
Low temperature was pointed out to cause the increase in the viscosity of water which behaves as a factor of the suppression of metabolism. From this, it was thought that metabolism can be suppressed by the increase in the number of hydrogen-bonded water molecules, because the viscosity is shown as a function of the energy of hydrogen bond. After dissolving xenon gas into intracellular water, the effect of suppression on plant cells was investigated. The velocity of protoplasmic streaming of coleoptile cell of barley was measured under the atmospheric condition and was 5.9μm/s at 288K. As the water became structured, the velocity decreased and it reached to 4.1μm/s at the xenon partial pressure of 0.5MPa. When structured condition was relaxed, the velocity of protoplasmic streaming recovered to 6.2μm/s. Viable ratio of dissected coleoptile cells after 7 days storage was zero at a normal condition and it improved by making the water structured. The optimum pressure of xenon was in the range from 0.4 to 0.7MPa under which viable ratio of 1.0 was observed.
