Wissenschaftler entsperren das Geheimnis von Venus Flytraps Haarauslöser Reaktion | Der Ionenkanal an der Basis der sensorischen Haare der Pflanze verstärkt die ersten Signale über dem kritischen Schwellenwert.

From the article: This latest [research](http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-63419-w) is an outgrowth of a 2020 paper detailing how the Japanese authors genetically altered a Venus flytrap to gain important clues about how the plant’s short-term „memory“ works. They introduced a gene for a calcium sensor protein called GCaMP6, which glows green whenever it binds to calcium. That green fluorescence allowed the team to visually track the changes in calcium concentrations in response to stimulating the plant’s sensitive hairs with a needle. They concluded that the waxing and waning of calcium concentrations in the leaf cells seem to serve as a kind of short-term memory for the Venus flytrap, though precisely how calcium concentrations work with the plant’s electrical network remained unclear.

This time, Hiraku Suda and Masatsugu at Saitama University sought to visualize the exact moment that a living plant converts a physical stimulus into a biological signal. They used the same fluorescent calcium sensor protein and were able to record how a gentle bending force on the plant produced a corresponding local rise in calcium concentration along with a small local electrical signal. A larger stimulus, however, acted like a switch being flipped, triggering a large electrical spike and a wave of calcium. Both of those signals then spread from the base of the hair out to the blade of the leaf.

The key to the response seemed to be an ion channel (DmMSL10) at the base of the sensory hairs. To test this, the team genetically modified flytraps to knock out that channel. Those plants only exhibited small local increases in calcium concentrations and electrical signals that never exceeded the threshold and spread to the leaves. This means that the ion channel serves as a kind of amplifier to boost the initial signals beyond the critical threshold so that the flytrap can react.

Finally, Suda and Masatsugu et al. tested both unmodified Venus flytraps and knockout plants in a more natural setting, building a mini-ecosystem in which ants were allowed to walk freely over the plants. The ant movement usually caused the unmodified plants to snap shut, but this response was much less frequent and plants snapped shut fewer times.

The authors concluded that the DmMSL10 ion channel is indeed a key mechanical sensor for the flytrap’s sensitive sensory hairs. And since many plants have responses tied to mechanosensing, they suggest that this underlying molecular mechanism could extend to other plants besides the Venus flytrap.

This is so interesting. According to the article, the calcium ion channels in the sensory hair cells depolarize the cells until they fire action potentials, allowing the transmission of long range electrical signals. This is the same mechanism that is used by neurons in animals. It’s so fascinating to see a similar system for sensing and acting evolving again in a completely different type of organism.