Dynamics of Defense: Total Fluid Release of Wild-Type VI Tomato Trichome

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfodHvMEixg

Original video: https://youtu.be/xfodHvMEixg

Published on: 10 June 2025

Witness the complete discharge of defensive metabolites from a wild tomato (Solanum habrochaites) Type VI glandular trichome. Filmed at 2142 frames per second (fps), this high-speed sequence provides a detailed look at the fluid dynamics following a micropipette-triggered rupture.

In wild tomato species, these trichomes possess large intercellular storage cavities filled with defensive compounds like sesquiterpenes. Once the micropipette applies sufficient force to cause a brittle fracture at the intermediate cell junction, the stored fluid is rapidly expelled. This video tracks the total fluid release time, showing how the solvent spreads to wet the trichome stalk and the surrounding leaf surface to entrap or repel potential pests.

Keywords: plant biomechanics, plant–insect interactions, trichomes

Citation:

Jared Popowski, Lucas Warma, Alicia Abarca Cifuentes, Petra Bleeker, Maziyar Jalaal, Glandular trichome rupture in tomato plants is an ultra-fast and sensitive defense mechanism against insects, Journal of Experimental Botany, Volume 76, Issue 21, 25 November 2025, Pages 6508–6519, https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/eraf257

Attribution 4.0 International — CC BY 4.0 - Creative Commons