Project description:Spermatophyte pollen tubes and root hairs have been used as single-cell-type model systems toward understanding the molecular processes underlying polar growth of plant cells. Horsetail (Equisetum arvense L.) is a perennial herb species in Equisetopsida, which creates separately growing spring and summer stems in its life cycle. The mature chlorophyllous spores produced from spring stems can germinate without dormancy. Here we report the cellular features and protein expression patterns in five stages of horsetail spore germination (mature spores, rehydrated spores, double-celled spores, germinated spores, and spores with protonemal cells). Using 2-DE combined with mass spectrometry, 80 proteins were found to be differentially expressed upon spore germination. Among them, proteins involved in photosynthesis, protein turnover, and energy supply were over-represented. Thirteen proteins appeared as isoforms on the gels, indicating the potential importance of post-translational modification. In addition, the dynamic changes of ascorbate peroxidase, peroxiredoxin, and dehydroascorbate reductase implied that reactive oxygen species homeostasis is critical in regulating cell division and tip-growth. The time course of germination and diverse expression patterns of proteins in photosynthesis, energy supply, lipid and amino acid metabolism indicated that heterotrophic and autotrophic metabolism were necessary in light-dependent germination of the spores. Twenty-six proteins were involved in protein synthesis, folding, and degradation, indicating that protein turnover is vital to spore germination and rhizoid tip-growth. Furthermore, the altered abundance of small G protein Ran1, 14-3-3 protein, actin, and Caffeoyl-CoA O-methyltransferase revealed that signaling transduction, vesicle trafficking, cytoskeleton dynamics, and cell wall modulation were critical to cell division and polar growth. These findings provide up-to-date evidences for understanding fern spore asymmetric division and rhizoid polar growth.
Project description:We used LM-RNAseq to compare the molecular fingerprints of cells enriched for subdomains within Selaginella, Equisetum, Arabidopsis and maize shoot apices. Three apical domains were isolated from the Selaginella and Equisetum SAMs: the AC domain, comprising the lone AC; the core domain, comprising the cells below the AC and above the initiating leaf primordium; and the initiating leaf primordium. LM-RNAseq analyses of these shoot apical subdomains generated hundreds of significantly DEGs for each cell type relative to whole-plant transcriptomes based on an FDR ⤠0.05. These data were analyzed for the presence of homologous developmental genetic programs across these three species, and for the identification of unique developmental programs operating within each species.