Assessing Plasma Membrane Integrity in Plant Roots

The transgenic and wild-type Xuzishu8 seedlings were treated with 150 mmol·L⁻¹ NaCl, while the control group was treated with water. After 24 h, the plasma membrane integrity in root cells was checked by using propidium iodide (PI) staining [58 (link)]. Root tips (3 cm) were collected from non-treated or NaCl-treated WT overexpressed transgenic lines and RNAi transgenic lines and were incubated in a staining buffer containing 5 mM KCl/MES and 3 μg mL⁻¹ PI (Life Technologies, Carlsbad, CA, USA) for 20 min. The samples were then washed in KCl/MES buffer for 5 min before imaging (elongation root zone) with an Olympus BX 63 epifluorescence microscope (Olympus, Tokyo, Japan).