Plant Cold Acclimation Methods and Protocols

Plant Cold Acclimation: Methods and Protocols details many of the methods and protocols commonly used to study plant cold acclimation and freezing tolerance, breeding, genetics, physiology or molecular biology, or any combination of these specialties. Chapters focus on interdisciplinary approaches, experimental methods, and concepts from different areas of science. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and key tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls.

Authoritative and practical, Plant Cold Acclimation: Methods and Protocols seeks to help not only new researchers starting in this field, but also those already working in a particular area of cold acclimation and freezing tolerance research who are looking to expand their range of experimental approaches.

Measuring Freezing Tolerance: Survival and Regrowth Assays.- Measuring Freezing Tolerance: Electrolyte Leakage and Chlorophyll Fluorescence Assays.- Conducting Field Trials for Freezing Tolerance Breeding in Cereals.- A Whole Plant Screening Test to Identify Genotypes with Superior Freezing Tolerance.- Mapping of Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) Associated with Plant Freezing Tolerance and Cold Acclimation.- Common Garden Experiments to Characterize Cold Acclimation Responses in Plants from Different Climatic Regions.- Identification of Arabidopsis Mutants with Altered Freezing Tolerance.- Infrared Thermal Analysis of Plant Freezing Processes.- Cryo-Scanning Electron Microscopy to Study the Freezing Behavior of Plant Tissues.- Three-Dimensional Reconstruction of Frozen and Thawed Plant Tissues from Microscopic Images.- Proteomic Approaches to Identify Cold Regulated Soluble Proteins.- Proteomic Approaches to Identify Cold Regulated Plasma Membrane Proteins.- Profiling Methods to Identify Cold Regulated Primary Metabolites Using Gas Chromatography Coupled to Mass Spectrometry.- A Lipidomic Approach to Identify Cold-Induced Changes in Arabidopsis Membrane Lipid Composition.- Quantification of Superoxide and Hydrogen Peroxide in Leaves.- Estimating Ice Encasement Tolerance of Herbage Plants.- Characterization of Ice Binding Proteins from Sea Ice Algae.- Isolation and Characterization of Ice Binding Proteins from Higher Plants.