Abstract
Intercellular communication via plasmodesmata (PD) is essential for plant growth, development, and defense, yet its regulation remains poorly understood. We set out to identify the chloroplast retrograde signals that regulate intercellular trafficking via PD. Using a combination of Arabidopsis thaliana mutants and gene silencing in Nicotiana benthamiana, we found that the metabolites of the tetrapyrrole biosynthetic pathway, most likely heme, can act to modulate PD-mediated intercellular trafficking. Knockout or knockdown of GUN5, encoding the catalytic subunit of the magnesium chelatase, revealed a correlation between reduced levels of total heme and severely decreased intercellular trafficking. Further, plants with reduced expression of genes involved in chloroplast RNA processing were shown to have decreased total heme levels and decreased intercellular trafficking. Like with GUN5, reduced expression of FC2, but not FC1, led to reduced levels of total heme and drastically reduced intercellular trafficking. Thus, the results support a model where a specific pool of heme regulates plasmodesmata and intercellular trafficking. We also identified genes that are potentially regulated by the heme signal to modify plasmodesmal function. Together, these findings strengthen the link between chloroplasts and PD in coordinating intercellular communication for optimal plant development and resource allocation.
Abstract from the paper’s OpenAlex record, shown for indexing and research. Copyright remains with the authors or the publisher. Read at the source ↗
The text the model read, with the source record’s inline markup (italics, sub- and superscripts) rendered and its character entities decoded; quote offsets refer to the raw text.
Claims 6
Claim · model-written summary
Knockout or knockdown of GUN5 was associated with reduced total heme levels and severely decreased intercellular trafficking.
Not reportedTaxon
Verbatim
e0“Knockout or knockdown of GUN5, encoding the catalytic subunit of the magnesium chelatase, revealed a correlation between reduced levels of total heme and severely decreased intercellular trafficking”
Claim · model-written summary
Plants with reduced expression of genes involved in chloroplast RNA processing had decreased total heme levels and decreased intercellular trafficking.
- Treatment
- reduced expression of genes involved in chloroplast RNA processinge1
- Outcome
- total heme levels and decreased intercellular traffickinge1
- Direction
- decreasede1
Not reportedTaxonComparator
Verbatim
e1“plants with reduced expression of genes involved in chloroplast RNA processing were shown to have decreased total heme levels and decreased intercellular trafficking”
Claim · model-written summary
Reduced expression of FC2 led to reduced total heme levels and drastically reduced intercellular trafficking.
- Treatment
- reduced expression of FC2e2
- Gene
- FC2e2
- Outcome
- levels of total heme and drastically reduced intercellular traffickinge2
- Direction
- reducede2
Not reportedTaxonComparator
Verbatim
e2“reduced expression of FC2, but not FC1, led to reduced levels of total heme and drastically reduced intercellular trafficking”
Claim · model-written summary
Reduced expression of FC1, unlike FC2, did not lead to reduced total heme levels and reduced intercellular trafficking.
Not reportedTaxonDirection
Verbatim
e2“reduced expression of FC2, but not FC1, led to reduced levels of total heme and drastically reduced intercellular trafficking”
Claim · model-written summary
The results support a model in which a specific pool of heme regulates plasmodesmata and intercellular trafficking.
Not reportedTaxon
Verbatim
e3“the results support a model where a specific pool of heme regulates plasmodesmata and intercellular trafficking”
Claim · model-written summary
Genes that are potentially regulated by the heme signal to modify plasmodesmal function were identified.
- Outcome
- genes that are potentially regulated by the heme signale4
Not reportedTaxon
Verbatim
e4“We also identified genes that are potentially regulated by the heme signal to modify plasmodesmal function”