Abstract
Ozone is a well-established atmospheric toxin for plants. It is known to diffuse through the open stomata of leaves into their inner air spaces. Chameides has carried out a mathematical analysis of the interaction of ozone with plants and concluded that most of the ozone entering a leaf will react with the ascorbic acid present within the cell walls of the plant cells lining the leaf air spaces. Ascorbic acid concentrations on the order of 300 μM within the cell wall, combined with the large rate constant for the reaction of ozone with ascorbic acid, ensure that no ozone will reach the plasmalemmas of the plant cells. Because the reaction of ascorbic acid with ozone produces singlet oxygen in high yield, plants exposed to an ozone-containing atmosphere should generate singlet oxygen. The singlet oxygen generated within the cell wall should also not reach the plant cell plasmalemma, as singlet oxygen reacts rapidly with ascorbic acid and, in addition, is quenched efficiently by water. However, because most of the singlet oxygen is generated close to the outer surface of the cell wall, some singlet oxygen should diffuse back into the air spaces of the leaf.
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