Highly sensitive determination of transient generation of biophotons during hypersensitive response to cucumber mosaic virus in cowpea.

The hypersensitive response (HR) is one mechanism of the resistance of plants to pathogen infection. It involves the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) which have crucial roles in signal transduction or as toxic agents leading to cell death. Often, ROS generation is accompanied by an ultraweak photon emission resulting from radical reactions that are initiated by ROS through the oxidation of living materials such as lipids, proteins, and DNA. This photon emission, referred to as 'biophotons', is extremely weak, but, based on the technique of photon counting imaging, a system has been developed to analyse the spatiotemporal properties of photon emission. Using this system, the dynamics of photon emission which might be associated with the oxidative burst, which promotes the HR, have been determined. Here, the transient generation of biophotons is demonstrated during the HR process in cowpea elicited by cucumber mosaic virus. The distinctive dynamics in spatiotemporal properties of biophoton emission during the HR expression on macroscopic and microscopic levels are also described. This study reveals the involvement of ROS generation in biophoton emission in the process of HR through the determination of the inhibitory effect of an antioxidant (Tiron) on biophoton emission.