Also the Venus Flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) can be drugged with ether. As a team led by Sönke Scherzer from the University of Würzburg reports in “Scientific Reports”, the carnivorous plant’s trapping leaves no longer react to touch when they are treated with the anesthetic gas. The cause is apparently that the anesthetic prevents the transmission of nerve stimuli. According to the findings of the working group, if a sensory hair of the anesthetized plant is touched, a chemical signal is still generated in the touch sensor, which, however, no longer leaves it. The cause, as has been shown, is a blocked receptor for the messenger substance glutamate. The team found that without ether, when the messenger substance was added, an electrical stimulus – the action potential – was created in neighboring cells. This process is blocked under anesthesia.
This means that the anesthesia in plants may be fundamentally similar to that in humans. Because glutamate also plays a role in the transmission of stimuli in human nerve cells, and glutamate receptors play a role in the anesthetic effect. The anesthesia of the Venus flytrap is similar to that of humans in another aspect: the plant cannot remember what happened during the anesthesia either. Under normal circumstances, the plant “counts” the touch of its sensory hairs to prevent it from snapping unnecessarily or starting to digest something inedible. Touching under anesthesia is not included in this calculation.
Behind the research is a longstanding and vexing medical mystery. While anesthetics are indispensable for medicine, it is still not clarified in detail how and why they work. The current study does not answer these questions either, but it does open up further research opportunities. A comparison between the glutamate receptors in the Venus flytrap and those in mammals could provide clues as to the exact mechanism of action. In addition, the plant could possibly be used in drug research and thus avoid animal testing, says Scherzer, according to a press release from the university.