External mechanical cues reveal core molecular pathway behind tissue bending in plants
Posted on: 27 April 2020
Preprint posted on 7 March 2020
Article now published in Developmental Cell at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.devcel.2020.12.008
Looks are deceiving: apical hook development relies on cellulose microfibrils and non-canonical TMK-mediated auxin signaling when plants are grown on soil-like conditions
Selected by Alvaro Montiel-Jorda
Categories: cell biology, molecular biology, plant biology
Background
During germination, plants develop a structure called the apical hook in order to protect the shoot apical meristem, which will give rise to the aerial plant tissues, from soil emergence-related damage. Several genes from the canonical auxin signaling pathway are thought to be important for apical hook formation, however their real contribution under natural conditions has not been investigated.
Baral et al., demonstrate that, in soil-grown plants, apical hook development does not rely on the canonical, ARF7/ARF19-mediated auxin signaling but rather on TMK receptor-mediated auxin signaling. This finding leads the authors to also show the importance of cellulose microfibrils for apical hook formation, and the hidden role of cellulose for the correct subcellular localization of the PIN proteins.
In the image to the left, we can observe that in vitro-grown mutant plants lacking KATANIN are not able to form an apical hook during germination, as previously described. In the image to the right, however, we surprisingly see that if we grow the same mutant inside the agar medium, mimicking the soil mechanical resistance, they form an apical hook.
This is confirmed when growing ktn1-5 mutants in soil, as attested by X-ray microcomputed
tomography.
Key findings
In this study, the authors compare the apical hook development of a series of mutants grown either in classical laboratory conditions, or grown inside the agar, which mimics the soil plants would normally encounter during germination. They are able to prove that, indeed, growing plants inside the agar is an effective method to replicate soil properties. Interestingly, they find that the mechanical constraint of the agar can be enough to complement the kat1-5 knockout mutant for KATANIN, which is usually unable to form an apical hook when grown on plates. This unexpected result prompted the authors to question whether, such as KATANIN, other proteins considered to be essential for apical hook development are so outside of the lab. Using genetics, they elegantly show that, in soil-grown plants, the TMK receptors mediate the correct asymmetric auxin maxima distribution between the concave and convex side of the hypocotyl required for apical hook development. In addition, they clearly demonstrate that correct cellulose microfibril deposition is also necessary and raise the question of whether TMK-mediated signaling might influence cellulose dynamics.
What I like about this work
I chose this paper because it addresses the possible bias that the experimental setup might introduce when trying to understand a biological process. Nowadays, when we have the tools to better imitate the natural plant environment, many groups still turn a blind eye to the fact that their results might not have a real significance because of the artificial growing conditions. I feel that the authors set an example with this article.
The authors make the surprising finding that many of the proteins we thought until now to be indispensable for apical hook development are actually dispensable for soil-grown plants. Among these proteins are KATANIN, ARF7 and 19 and auxin influx carriers AUX1, LAX1, 2 and 3. These results evidence the fact that surely many genes or proteins we believe to be essential for certain biological processes are only so for laboratory conditions and not for the natural environment.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the authors for answering the questions and engaging in the discussion.
Further reading
1. Cao, M., Chen, R., Li, P., Yu, Y., Zheng, R., Ge, D., Zheng W., Wang X., Gu Y., Gelová Z., Friml J., Zhang H., Liu R., He J., & Xu T. (2019). TMK1-mediated auxin signaling regulates differential growth of the apical hook. Nature, 568:240-243.
2. Dai, N., Wang, W., Patterson, S. E., & Bleecker, A. B. (2013). The TMK subfamily of receptor-like kinases in Arabidopsis display an essential role in growth and a reduced sensitivity to auxin. PloS one, 8(4).
doi: https://doi.org/10.1242/prelights.19120
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