Project description:Trichomes of Arabidopsis thaliana have been broadly used to study cell development, cell differentiation and cell wall biogenesis. In this context, the exposed position, extraordinary size and characteristic morphology of trichomes featured particularly the exploration of trichome mutant phenotypes. However, trichome-specific biochemical or -omics analyses require a proper separation of trichomes from residual plant tissue. Thus, different strategies were proposed in the past for trichome isolation, which mostly rely on harsh conditions. To improve trichome-leaf separation, we revised a previously proposed method for isolating A. thaliana trichomes by optimizing the mechanical and biochemical specifications for trichome release. Furthermore, we introduced a density gradient centrifugation step to remove residual plant debris. We found that prolonged, yet mild seedling agitation increases the overall trichome yield by about 62% compared to the original protocol. We noticed that subsequent density gradient centrifugation further visually enhances trichome purity, which could be advantageous for downstream analyses. Histochemical and biochemical investigation of trichome cell wall composition indicated that gentle agitation during trichome release largely preserves trichome integrity. We used enriched and purified trichomes for proteomic analysis and present a reference data set of trichome-resident and -enriched proteins.
Project description:GLABRA3 (GL3) and GLABRA1 (GL1) function as selector genes that control the differentiation of a group of protodermal cells into trichomes in Arabidopsis thaliana. We performed genome-wide location (ChIP-chip) analyses by using transgenic Arabidopsis plants carrying GL3-YFP or GL1-YFP-MYC1 mini genes. These analyses identified statistically significant enriched DNA associated with GL1 and GL3. A total ~540 and ~700 genes were identified as located proximal and downstream to the GL1 and GL3 binding regions, respectively. Keywords: ChIP-chip