Leaf anatomy during leaf development of photoautotrophically in vitro-grown tobacco plants as affected by growth irradiance

Tobacco plants were cultured in vitro photoautotrophically at three levels of irradiance (PAR 400-700 nm): low (LI, 60 micromol/square m/s), middle (MI, 180 micromol/square m/s) and high (HI, 270 micromol/square m/s). Anatomy of the fourth leaf from bottom was followed during leaf development. In HI and MI plants, leaf area expansion started earlier as compared to LI plants, and both HI and MI plants developed some adaptations of sun species: leaves were thicker with higher proportion of palisade parenchyma to spongy parenchyma tissue. Furthermore, in HI and MI plants palisade and spongy parenchyma cells were larger and relative abundance of chloroplasts in parenchyma cells measured as chloroplasts cross-sectional area in the cell was lower than in LI plants. During leaf growth, chloroplasts cross-sectional area in both palisade and spongy parenchyma cells in all treatments considerably decreased, and finally it occupied only about 5 to 8% of the cell cross-sectional area. Thus, leaf anatomy of photoautotrophically in vitro cultured plants showed a similar response to growth irradiance as in vivo grown plants. However, the formation of chloroplasts and therefore of photosynthetic apparatus was strongly impaired.