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A clade in the QUASIMODO2 family evolved with vascular plants and supports a role for cell wall composition in adaptation to environmental changes

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Abstract

The evolution of plant vascular tissue is tightly linked to the evolution of specialised cell walls. Mutations in the QUASIMODO2 (QUA2) gene from Arabidopsis thaliana were previously shown to result in cell adhesion defects due to reduced levels of the cell wall component homogalacturonic acid. In this study, we provide additional information about the role of QUA2 and its closest paralogues, QUASIMODO2 LIKE1 (QUL1) and QUL2. Within the extensive QUA2 family, our phylogenetic analysis shows that these three genes form a clade that evolved with vascular plants. Consistent with a possible role of this clade in vasculature development, QUA2 is highly expressed in the vascular tissue of embryos and inflorescence stems and overexpression of QUA2 resulted in temperature-sensitive xylem collapse. Moreover, in-depth characterisation of qua2 qul1 qul2 triple mutant and 35S::QUA2 overexpression plants revealed contrasting temperature-dependent stem development with dramatic effects on stem width. Taken together, our results suggest that the QUA2-specific clade contributed to the evolution of vasculature and illustrate the important role that modification of cell wall composition plays in the adaptation to changing environmental conditions, including changes in temperature.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Nicolas Arnaud, Paul Derbyshire, Thomas Girin, Karim Sorefan, Penelope Sparrow, Pauline Stephenson and Tom Wood for critically reading the manuscript and providing useful comments. We are also grateful to Liam Dolan for suggestions and discussions, to Gregory Mouille for providing qua2-1 and qua2-2 seeds, to Chrystelle Asseman and Negin Agange for assistance with the germination assay and to Philip Martin for statistical advice. This work was supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (Core Strategic Grant to the John Innes Centre), JIC Foundation and by a Marie Curie Fellowship on the Early Stage Training Programme MEST-CT-2005-019727 to S. F.

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  1. Department of Crop Genetics, John Innes Centre, Colney Lane, Norwich, NR4 7UH, UK

    Sara Fuentes & Lars Østergaard

  2. Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, John Innes Centre, Colney Lane, Norwich, NR4 7UH, UK

    Nuno Pires

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Correspondence to Lars Østergaard.

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Fuentes, S., Pires, N. & Østergaard, L. A clade in the QUASIMODO2 family evolved with vascular plants and supports a role for cell wall composition in adaptation to environmental changes. Plant Mol Biol 73, 605–615 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11103-010-9640-5

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