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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Ithaca, New York » Robert W. Holley Center for Agriculture & Health » Plant, Soil and Nutrition Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #319585
Title: An arabidopsis gene regulatory network for secondary cell wall synthesis

Author
item TAYLOR-TEEPLES, MALLORY - University Of California
item LIN, LI - University Of Massachusetts
item DE LUCAS, MIGUEL - University Of California
item ZHANG, LIFANG - Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
item Ware, Doreen
item BRADY, SIOBHAN - University Of California

Submitted to: Nature
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/20/2014
Publication Date: 12/24/2014
Citation: Taylor-Teeples, M., Lin, L., De Lucas, M., Zhang, L., Ware, D., Brady, S. 2014. An arabidopsis gene regulatory network for secondary cell wall synthesis. Nature. 517:571-575.

Interpretive Summary: The secondary cell wall in plants are responsible for most parts of the plant biomass. This paper uses several approaches including yeast one-hybrid that can determine the protein-DNA interactions to explore the coordination between transcriptional regulation of synthesis and deposition of the polymers in the cell wall. The network that derived from this work has identified hundreds of novel regulators and provided considerable insight into the developmental regulation of xylem cell differentiation. The network, which includes a cell cycle regulator, is comprised of many coherent and incoherent feed forward loops that likely ensure robust regulation of these important biological processes.

Technical Abstract: The plant cell wall is an important factor for determining cell shape, function and response to the environment. Secondary cell walls, such as those found in xylem, are composed of cellulose, hemicelluloses and lignin and account for the bulk of plant biomass. The coordination between transcriptional regulation of synthesis and deposition for each polymer is complex and vital to cell function. A regulatory hierarchy of developmental switches has been proposed, although the full complement of regulators remains unknown. Here, we present a protein-DNA interaction network between Arabidopsis transcription factors and secondary cell wall metabolic genes with gene expression regulated by a series of feed-forward loops. This model allowed us to develop and validate new hypotheses about secondary cell wall gene regulation under abiotic stress. Distinct stresses are able to perturb targeted transcription factors or promoters to potentially promote functional adaptation. These interactions will serve as a foundation for understanding the regulation of a complex and integral plant component.