The modification of phenylpropanoid profile affects sensitivity to heat stress in cell cultures of Daucus carota.

Biotic and abiotic stresses induce the accumulation of secondary metabolites in plants. However, the precise in vivo functions of these molecules are still unclear. In vitro cell cultures can be a simplified system to investigate the biological role of secondary metabolites after stress [2]. In this work, a heat stress was applied to R3M carrot cell culture, a line that is able to accumulate cyanidin derivatives (ACs) and hydroxycinnamic acid (HCA) derivatives. The heat treatment caused the appearance of cytoplasmic patches and a strong reduction of the number of viable cells. However, the administration of hydroxycinnamic acids before the heat treatment resulted in a reduction of the number of cells with cytoplasm patches and in the reduction of cell death (Toffali et al., unpublished results).