N-glycan transition of the early developmental stage in Oryza sativa

Abstract

N-Glycosylation is one of the post-translational modifications. In animals, N-glycans linked to proteins function in cell–cell recognition, sorting, transport, and other biological phenomena. However, in plants, N-glycan-mediated biological functions remain obscure. In a previous study, we showed that the main type of N-glycan transition is from the paucimannosidic to complex type before and after germination in Oryza sativa, suggesting that transitions of N-glycan, including those of glycoproteins and glycosyltransferases, are closely associated with plant growth. To further elucidate the relationship between N-glycan structure and plant growth, we analyzed the structures of N-glycans expressed in O. sativa seedlings grown under light conditions and performed comparative analyses of the structures in the shoot and root. The analyses show that fundamental N-glycan structures are common to the shoot and root, whereas paucimannosidic-type N-glycans dramatically decreased in the root grown under light conditions. Further, to investigate the effects of light on N-glycan structures in O. sativa seedlings, we analyzed N-glycan structures in O. sativa seedlings grown in the dark. Understandably, N-glycan expression in the root was almost unaffected by light. However, despite a marked difference in phenotype, N-glycan expression in the shoot was also unaffected by light. This result suggests that the shoot and root of O. sativa have different glycoproteins and distinct N-glycan synthetic systems. Thus, we propose that the N-glycan synthetic system of the O. sativa shoot is almost unaffected by light conditions and that many photosynthesis-related proteins are not modified by N-glycans.