Why is Spinach used in such odd botany (study of plants) research projects (e.g., reconstructing a human heart, sending email, explosive sensors, etc.)? Is there anything special about the plant that makes I worth while in these projects? Something like how lab rats are used in a lot of research projects?
In: Biology
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Unrelated reasons really. Plants in general are really good at chemical analysis. Essentially plants absorb all kinds of elements from the surrounding soil. And plants respond to those elements. Some are needed for the plant’s growth, some will negatively impact the plant’s growth, some will cause the plant to create certain chemical reactions in order to interact or respond to specific elements or chemicals.
That also means that when you’re aware of how a plant reacts to specific elements or chemicals, you can use that plant as an indicator for the presence of those chemicals. Essentially plants can be excellent sensors for telling you what’s happening in the soil and groundwater.
That said, some elements are more reactive catalysts than others. Iron and nitrogen are fantastic catalysts and spinach is very rich in them. Using the sensor metaphor, that means a spinach sensor is more sensitive and easier to read for chemical reactions in which nitrogen or iron is an important component. This happens to be the case for those experiments where plants were used to detect explosive compounds.
Generally speaking, these experiments are easier to do when using subjects that we know a lot about, are easy to grow or raise, and widespread in their use. Like lab rats or common crops like spinach.
The medical experiments you mentioned use spinach for completely unrelated reasons but it’s still very helpful that spinach is extremely well researched and easily available.
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