Evolution of the cell wall components during terrestrialization

Alicja Banasiak

doi:10.5586/asbp.2014.051

Abstract

<p>Colonization of terrestrial ecosystems by the first land plants, and their subsequent expansion and diversification, were crucial for the life on the Earth. However, our understanding of these processes is still relatively poor. Recent intensification of studies on various plant organisms have identified the plant cell walls are those structures, which played a key role in adaptive processes during the evolution of land plants. Cell wall as a structure protecting protoplasts and showing a high structural plasticity was one of the primary subjects to changes, giving plants the new properties and capabilities, which undoubtedly contributed to the evolutionary success of land plants.</p><p>In this paper, the current state of knowledge about some main components of the cell walls (cellulose, hemicelluloses, pectins and lignins) and their evolutionary alterations, as preadaptive features for the land colonization and the plant taxa diversification, is summarized. Some aspects related to the biosynthesis and modification of the cell wall components, with particular emphasis on the mechanism of transglycosylation, are also discussed. In addition, new surprising discoveries related to the composition of various cell walls, which change how we perceive their evolution, are presented, such as the presence of lignin in red algae or MLG (1→3),(1→4)-β-D-glucan in horsetails. Currently, several new and promising projects, regarding the cell wall, have started, deciphering its structure, composition and metabolism in the evolutionary context. That additional information will allow us to better understand the processes leading to the terrestrialization and the evolution of extant land plants.</p>

Highlights

Emergence of the land plants was one of the most important events in the history of life on the Earth, which happened about 480–470 million years ago [1,2,3,4,5]
It is generally accepted that land plants, including bryophytes and vascular plants, are a monophyletic group derived from ancient freshwater charophycean green algae (CGA) [1,6,7]
The sequence of CMP-KDO synthase, essential for the synthesis of KDO-containing polymers, was detected in both land plants and in gram-negative bacteria [126]. These results suggest that some sugar residues and some genes involved in the rhamnogalacturonan II (RG-II) biosynthesis can be of more ancient origin than this polymer [12]

Summary

Introduction

Emergence of the land plants was one of the most important events in the history of life on the Earth, which happened about 480–470 million years ago [1,2,3,4,5]. New surprising discoveries related to the composition of various cell walls, which change how we perceive their evolution, are presented, such as the presence of lignin in red algae or MLG (1→3),(1→4)-β-D-glucan in horsetails. The main focus is on the polysaccharide components of the cell wall and on lignin, in the context of evolutionary changes (Tab. 1) associated with their significance for the land plant emergence and diversification.

Results

Conclusion