Overview

• Researchers located the mechanosensitive ion channel DmMSL10 at the base of the flytrap’s trigger hairs as the primary detector of very light touch.
• Two-photon GCaMP6f imaging with intracellular recordings revealed a threshold mechanism in which stronger deflection yields an all-or-none action potential paired with a propagating Ca2+ wave.
• DmMSL10 knockout plants produced only local, subthreshold receptor potentials and attenuated calcium signals, indicating the channel amplifies initial stimuli to reach the spike threshold.
• In a lab-built ecosystem with freely roaming ants, mutant plants lacking DmMSL10 closed less often and showed fewer long-range Ca2+ waves than wild type.
• The peer-reviewed Nature Communications study from Saitama University and Japan’s National Institute for Basic Biology links the molecular sensor to the flytrap’s known touch-counting behavior while broader plant relevance remains a hypothesis.