Abstract
Responses of cells to mechanical stress are thought to be critical in coordinating growth and development. Consistent with this idea, mechanically activated channels play important roles in animal development. For example, the PIEZO1 channel controls cell division and epithelial-layer integrity and is necessary for vascular development in mammals. In plants, the actual contribution of mechanoperception to development remains questionable because very few putative mechanosensors have been identified and the phenotypes of the corresponding mutants are rather mild. Here, we show that the Arabidopsis Defective Kernel 1 (DEK1) protein, which is essential for development beyond early embryogenesis, is associated with a mechanically activated Ca2+ current in planta, suggesting that perception of mechanical stress plays a critical role in plant development.
Highlights
Responses of cells to mechanical stress are thought to be critical in coordinating growth and development
Based on the knowledge of plasma-membrane mechanosensing in animal systems, the most probable trigger for Ca2+ release from internal cellular compartments (Ca2+-induced calcium release) is either the opening of plasma membrane-localized mechanosensitive Ca2+ permeable channels, or the opening of voltage-dependent Ca2+ channels in response to changes in membrane potential caused by mechanosensitive channels permeable to other ions[12]
In summary, we show that the mechanosensitive activity of a Ca2+-permeable channel present in the plasma membrane of Arabidopsis callus-derived protoplast requires the TM domains of the Defective Kernel 1 (DEK1) protein
Summary
Responses of cells to mechanical stress are thought to be critical in coordinating growth and development. The MSL8 protein has recently been shown to be required for pollen grains to survive rapid rehydration during fertilization[14], the very mild developmental phenotypes in single and multiple mutants of genes encoding the channels described above, suggests that they are unlikely to play a major role in mechanosensing during development. These proteins have not conclusively been shown to be responsible for any of the mechanosensitive Ca2 + currents which have been detected and extensively described by electrophysiologists over the past few decades in planta[20, 22,23,24,25,26]. As the epidermis plays a critical role in organ growth in plants (e.g., refs. 39–42), this, in turn, has major implications for plant development as a whole
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