If you were to make a solution of retina pigments and feed it to a photosynthetic plant, would the plant absorb the retina?

 

If it did absorb the retina, would the plant turn white, since it would be able to absorb the full spectrum of visible light?

Does anyone know?

Well....let's hazard a guess here. If the retinal pigments were too big to be absorbed by the cells in the phloem (?) .....trying hard to remember undergrad botany here!...then no, they would not be taken up. It would depend on what transporters/channels were present in the plant cell membrane. If they could be absorbed, then maybe they could be photobleached by light but equally they may emit "colour" if they fluoresce at the wavelength of visible light. I may have this totally wrong being somewhat hazy on optical physics and botany etc. but at least I tried to answer your question.

To get radiolabelled molecules into plants people just put them in a capillary tube and stick this into the plant. That would probably work in this case too.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if the plant would break down a molecule like retinal though.

Thanks for the reply, guys.