Many components of the plant cell wall are made inside the cell at the Golgi apparatus and must be secreted before they can be integrated into the plant cell wall. Our new paper in Developmental Cell shows that the plant cell wall polysaccharide xyloglucan requires side chains for effective secretion following its biosynthesis in the Golgi apparatus. We showed that production of side-chain-deficient xyloglucan causes intracellular aggregations of proteins and polysaccharides. These results highlight the importance of polysaccharide structure for efficient secretion to the cell wall. This work was led by recent McFarLab PhD awardee Natalie Hoffmann and demonstrates that some cell wall modifications may need to occur after polysaccharide synthesis and secretion, suggesting that cell wall-localized, polysaccharide-modifying enzymes might make exciting targets for biotechnology.

Free access to the article is temporarily provided via this link.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.devcel.2024.06.006

Our recent paper in PNAS on pectin synthesis has been highlighted by the prestigious journal Nature Plants.

Trösch, R. (2024) Elmo meets Quasimodo. Nature Plants 10, 693. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-024-01715-x

When plants encounter cell wall stress, they must presumably fortify the plant cell wall by synthesizing and secreting additional cell wall components. Our new paper in The Journal of Experimental Botany directly tests this hypothesis using live cell imaging and electron microscopy of plant samples across a range of cell wall stresses. We found that changes to cell wall integrity results in a rebalancing of the endomembrane system to promote secretion over endocytic trafficking. This work was led by recent McFarLab PhD awardee Natalie Hoffmann, with important contributions by MSc student Eskandar Mohammad, and is part of the JXB Special Issue on Exocytosis.

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https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erae195

Our collaborative work with Prof. Staffan Person at the University of Copenhagen to which Eduardo made important contributions is now available online at PNAS.

Cell walls are essential to cell morphogenesis, to protect plants against environmental stress, and for an array of products in our daily life. Pectins are essential components of plant cell walls that govern important agricultural characteristics, such as plant growth and development, fruit ripening, and seed pod shattering. In this study, we outline how a family of unknown proteins function as a scaffold for key synthesis components of pectin, a central cell wall polymer. Our results thus define a robust pectin synthesis protein complex that is essential for the structure and function of Golgi and for plant tissue integrity. These results add critical information regarding pectin synthesis and cell wall metabolons.

https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2321759121

Eskandar’s spotlight review on the recent characterization of a non-canonical mechanism of cellulose synthase trafficking and regulation is now online with Trends in Plant Science.

This paper highlights Liu et al. 2023 Nature Communications and discusses the implications of these findings for our understanding of the regulation of cellulose synthesis via post-Golgi trafficking.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tplants.2024.02.014

Larissa’s MSc work is now published in Trees.  Larissa was cosupervised by Heather, Antanas Spokevicius and Gerd Bossinger at the University of Melbourne.

When trees encounter physical stress, such as bending due to gravity or wind, they make a special kind of cell wall, called reaction wood, which can affect commercially-relevant properties of the wood. Larissa’s work investigated how microtubules and cellulose are reoriented during reaction wood formation in three economically important trees: poplar, pine, and eucalyptus. She found intriguing similarities and differences between these species that builds a more nuanced understanding of reaction wood formation.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-024-02497-7

New advancements are constantly refining what we know, and what remains unknown, about plant cell wall synthesis. Heather’s new article in the Journal of Experimental Botany “Open questions in plant cell wall synthesis” highlights recent findings and the questions that remain unanswered about cell wall synthesis.  This article is part of the Centenary Review Collection, a collection of Darwin Reviews that have been commissioned as part of the celebrations surrounding the 100^th anniversary of the Society of Experimental Biology.

https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erad110

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Editorial on values-driven lab leadership published in JXB Following an exciting workshop at ICAR 2021 “Running a Research Group in the Next Generation” co-hosted by Heather and Jacqueline Monaghan from Queen’s University and featuring Siobhan Brady, Liz Haswell, and Sonali Roy, we have compiled the reflections and resources from this workshop into a short article for Journal of Experimental Botany with additional insights from Benjamin Schwessinger.

This article is aimed at early career researchers and anyone else considering their leadership. We elaborate on ideas emerging from the workshop that we hope will allow current and future group leaders to reflect upon and adjust to the rapidly evolving nature of the academic scientific enterprise.

https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erac407

Update: Our article has been highlighted on Plantae, the blog from the American Society of Plant Biologists.

Our collaboration with Yi Zhang’s group at Beijing Normal University that was recently published PNAS has been highlighted in Nature Plants. The research highlight article emphasizes the intriguing link between energy sensing and actin cytoskeleton dynamics that was uncovered by Dai et al.