ABA treated Chlamydomonas forms less palmelloid cells under NaCl stress
The formation of palmelloids in Chlamydomonas was studied using flow cytometry pulse width data as previously described by Chioccioliet al. , 2014, based on cell size. We found that after 12 h of stress with 125 mM NaCl, palmelloids constituted 30% of the total cell population which is ~5-fold of the unstressed control (Fig. 5 & Supplementary Fig. 5). The remaining was freely motile cells. When assayed for extended time periods (24 h), the population distribution attained a plateau. However, the formation of palmelloids in ABA-treated cells under NaCl treatment did not significantly change from the unstressed control, which indicates that ABA prevents the cells from undergoing changes when exposed to NaCl stress.