Reading the leaves: Decoding the secret cellular language of plants
There's more to growing a plant than just adding enough water and providing adequate sunlight.
Plant communication through cellular interactions enables survival for nearly half a billion years. Scientists decode this cellular language to develop resilient crops and understand human cell resilience. Keiko Torii's research at the University of Texas at Austin reveals the molecular machinery behind this communication. The ERECTA receptor, discovered by Torii's team, spans the plant's cell membrane to receive signals from neighboring cells, thereby regulating growth and development including stomatal patterning.
ERECTA adjusts stomatal numbers based on signals about the plant's development or environmental conditions. Activation of ERECTA triggers a signaling cascade that activates genes like SCREAM, SPEECHLESS, and MUTE, which serve as "master regulators" of stomatal differentiation. However, the mechanism of how the receptor is transported to storage compartments and degraded upon activation is not fully understood.
Torii's team identified proteins that shuttle ERECTA to the cell's internal vesicles and then vacuoles, the compartments where the receptor is degraded. This process is crucial for proper signaling and stomatal pattern organization. Torii's team also explores the interaction between plant development and immune signals. Plants have immune receptors that detect pathogens and trigger an immune response that closes stomata to prevent bacterial invasion.
Interestingly, ERECTA and immune receptors are nearly identical and trigger similar pathways. The immune response pathway can even hijack the developmental pathway under certain conditions, reducing stomatal numbers if pathogens are attacking. Torii and her team recently discovered the conditions under which the immune signaling cascade can override the developmental pathway, thereby regulating stomatal development.
They found that pathogens may increase the number of entry points, which the plant immune signaling then counters by reducing the number of stomata. This work indicates that understanding these pathways could help develop crops that can withstand changing conditions, such as drought or pathogen attacks, using fewer resources.
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