Oral Presentation International Plant Molecular Biology Conference 2024

Mechano-chemical basis of cellular architecture in plants (#319)

René Schneider 1 2 , Ryan Eng 1 3 , David Ehrhardt 4 , Elliot Meyerowitz 5 6 , Arun Sampathkumar 1
  1. Max Planck Institute for Molecular Plant Physiology, Potsdam, BRANDENBURG, Germany
  2. Plant Physiology Department, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany
  3. Department of Comparative Genetics and Development, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
  4. Department of Plant Biology, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, California, USA
  5. Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA
  6. Sainsbury Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, UK

Mechanical forces control development in plants and animals, acting as cues in pattern formation and as the driving force of morphogenesis. Plant cells experience mechanical stress generated internally due to turgor or externally due to the growth of neighboring cells. Such mechanical stresses influence microtubule cytoskeleton ordering with microtubules aligning along the principal direction of tensile mechanical stresses. Microtubules facilitates deposition of stiff cellulose microfirbrils, that in turn resists such forces ensuring that overall cellular stress is maintained. Puzzle shaped epidermal pavement cells serve as an excellent model cell type to identify molecular components that are involved in sensing and transducing mechanical signals in plants. Investigating such mechanisms ultimately helps us understand how mechanical stresses orchestrate cell and tissue morphology. Using interdisciplinary approaches involving quantitative live cell imaging, computational modeling, molecular and mechanical perturbations, we show that molecular assemblies residing at the interface of the cell membrane and the cell wall play an important role in regulating microtubule response to mechanical stimuli.  Based on our results, we propose that stabilization of microtubules along the principal directions of anisotropic mechanical stress could help strengthen established patterns of wall reinforcement, such as during the initiation of morphogenetic events, while disturbance in the physical continuum between the cell wall, plasma membrane and the microtubules could provide the noise allowing for greater adaptive response to new inputs, both mechanical and developmental.

  1. van Spoordonk, R, Schneider, R, Sampathkumar, A, (2023). Mechano-chemical regulation of complex cell shape formation: Epidermal pavement cells—A case study. Quantitative Plant Biology, 4, p.e5
  2. Schneider R, Ehrhardt DW, Meyerowitz EM, Sampathkumar A, (2022). Tethering of cellulose synthase to microtubules dampens mechano-induced cytoskeletal organization in Arabidopsis pavement cells. Nature Plants, 8(9):1064-73
  3. Eng RC, Schneider R, Matz TW, Carter R, Ehrhardt DW, Jönsson H, Nikoloski Z, Sampathkumar A, (2021). KATANIN and CLASP function at different spatial scales to mediate microtubule response to mechanical stress in Arabidopsis cotyledons. Current Biology, 31, 3262-3274.
  4. Sampathkumar A, Kurpinski P, Wightman R, Milani P, Berquand A, Boudaoud A, Hamant O, Jonsson H, Meyerowitz E (2014b). “Subcellular and supracellular mechanical stress prescribes cytoskeleton behavior in Arabidopsis cotyledon pavement cells”. eLife 2014;3:e01967