Dataset Information

A QTL Study for Regions Contributing to Arabidopsis thaliana Root Skewing on Tilted Surfaces.

ABSTRACT: Plant root systems must grow in a manner that is dictated by endogenous genetic pathways, yet sensitive to environmental input. This allows them to provide the plant with water and nutrients while navigating a heterogeneous soil environment filled with obstacles, toxins, and pests. Gravity and touch, which constitute important cues for roots growing in soil, have been shown to modulate root architecture by altering growth patterns. This is illustrated by Arabidopsis thaliana roots growing on tilted hard agar surfaces. Under these conditions, the roots are exposed to both gravity and touch stimulation. Consequently, they tend to skew their growth away from the vertical and wave along the surface. This complex growth behavior is believed to help roots avoid obstacles in nature. Interestingly, A. thaliana accessions display distinct growth patterns under these conditions, suggesting the possibility of using this variation as a tool to identify the molecular mechanisms that modulate root behavior in response to their mechanical environment. We have used the Cvi/Ler recombinant inbred line population to identify quantitative trait loci that contribute to root skewing on tilted hard agar surfaces. A combination of fine mapping for one of these QTL and microarray analysis of expression differences between Cvi and Ler root tips identifies a region on chromosome 2 as contributing to root skewing on tilted surfaces, potentially by modulating cell wall composition.

SUBMITTER: Vaughn LM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3276130 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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A QTL Study for Regions Contributing to Arabidopsis thaliana Root Skewing on Tilted Surfaces.

Vaughn Laura M LM Masson Patrick H PH

G3 (Bethesda, Md.) 20110701 2

Plant root systems must grow in a manner that is dictated by endogenous genetic pathways, yet sensitive to environmental input. This allows them to provide the plant with water and nutrients while navigating a heterogeneous soil environment filled with obstacles, toxins, and pests. Gravity and touch, which constitute important cues for roots growing in soil, have been shown to modulate root architecture by altering growth patterns. This is illustrated by Arabidopsis thaliana roots growing on til ...[more]

PMID: 22384323

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Project description:The observation that plant roots skew in microgravity recently refuted the long-held conviction that skewing was a gravity-dependent phenomenon. Further, spaceflight root skewing suggests that specific root morphologies and cell wall remodeling systems may be important aspects of spaceflight physiological adaptation. However, connections between skewing, cell wall modification and spaceflight physiology are currently based on inferences rather than direct tests. Therefore, the Advanced Plant Experiments-03-2 (APEX-03-2) spaceflight study was designed to elucidate the contribution of two skewing- and cell wall-associated genes in Arabidopsis to root behavior and gene expression patterns in spaceflight, to assess whether interruptions of different skewing pathways affect the overall spaceflight-associated process. SPIRAL1 is a skewing-related protein implicated in directional cell expansion, and functions by regulating cortical microtubule dynamics. SKU5 is skewing-related glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchored protein of the plasma membrane and cell wall implicated in stress response signaling. These two genes function in different cellular pathways that affect skewing on the Earth, and enable a test of the relevance of skewing pathways to spaceflight physiological adaptation. In this study, both sku5 and spr1 mutants showed different skewing behavior and markedly different patterns of gene expression in the spaceflight environment. The spr1 mutant showed fewer differentially expressed genes than its Col-0 wild-type, whereas sku5 showed considerably more than its WS wild-type. Developmental age played a substantial role in spaceflight acclimation in all genotypes, but particularly in sku5 plants, where spaceflight 4d seedlings had almost 10-times as many highly differentially expressed genes as the 8d seedlings. These differences demonstrated that the two skewing pathways represented by SKU5 and SPR1 have unique and opposite contributions to physiological adaptation to spaceflight. The spr1 response is less intense than wild type, suggesting that the loss of SPR1 positively impacts spaceflight adaptation. Conversely, the intensity of the sku5 responses suggests that the loss of SKU5 initiates a much more complex, deeper and more stress related response to spaceflight. This suggests that proper SKU5 function is important to spaceflight adaptation.

Dataset Information

A QTL Study for Regions Contributing to Arabidopsis thaliana Root Skewing on Tilted Surfaces.

Publications

A QTL Study for Regions Contributing to Arabidopsis thaliana Root Skewing on Tilted Surfaces.

Similar Datasets

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