Rice plants response to the disruption of OsCSLD4 gene

Abstract

Plant cell wall is a complex polysaccharide network and performs important developmental and physiological functions far beyond supplying the physical constrains. Plant cells have the ability to react to cell wall defects as exhibited by changes in gene expression, accumulation of ectopic lignin, stress responses, and growth arrest. It is a major challenge to understand how plants sense and response to wall integrity since very little is known about the signaling involved in the responses. Cellulose synthase-like D (CSLD) proteins mediating the biosynthesis of a wall polysaccharide polymer make up a common subfamily to all plants. Recently, we have reported the functional characterization of CSLD4 in rice. Mutation in OsCSLD4 shows morphological alterations and pleiotropic effects on wall compositions and structure. Our study demonstrates that OsCSLD4 plays critical roles in cell wall formation and plant growth. Here we show the subtle wall alterations through separating the culm residues into five fractions. Quantitative RT-PCR analysis further revealed that the expression of various genes involved in xylan synthesis and cell-cycle regulation was altered in mutant plants, as the responses to OsCSLD4 disruption. Therefore, plants may have a fine sensory machinery to react to wall defects and modulate growth for adapting to the changes.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the grant from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (90717117) and the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (KSCX2-YW-G-033).

Figures and Tables

Figure 1 Real-time PCR analysis of the gene expression levels in oscsld4 and wild-type plants. (A) The expression level of genes involved in xylan synthesis. (B) The expression level of genes of CD K/Cyclin complexes. The expression levels are given by counting that of wild type as 1.

Table 1 Monosaccharide compositional analysis of the wall fractions derived from culms of mutant and wild-type plants

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