Staffan Persson's research while affiliated with IT University of Copenhagen and other places
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Publications (306)
As one of the major components of plant cell walls, cellulose is crucial for plant growth and development. Cellulose is synthesized by cellulose synthase (CesA) complexes (CSCs), which are trafficked and delivered from the Golgi apparatus to the plasma membrane. How CesAs are released from Golgi remains largely unclear. In this study, we observed t...
In the model plant Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), the absence of the essential macro-nutrient phosphate reduces primary root growth through decreased cell division and elongation, requiring alterations to the polysaccharide-rich cell wall surrounding the cells. Despite its importance, the regulation of cell wall synthesis in response to low ph...
Plant cells possess robust and flexible cell walls composed primarily of cellulose, a polysaccharide that provides structural support and enables cell expansion. Cellulose is synthesised by the Cellulose Synthase A (CESA) catalytic subunits, which form cellulose synthase complexes (CSCs). While significant progress has been made in unravelling CSC...
In the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, the absence of the essential macro-nutrient phosphate reduces primary root growth through decreased cell division and elongation, requiring alterations to the polysaccharide-rich cell wall surrounding the cells. Despite its significance, the regulation of cell wall synthesis in response to low phosphate leve...
The plant cell wall (CW) is one of the most important physical barriers phytopathogens must conquer to invade their hosts. This barrier is a dynamic structure that responds to pathogen infection through a complex network of immune receptors, together with CW-synthesizing and CW-degrading enzymes. Callose deposition in the primary CW is a well-known...
Cellulose is the chief constituent of the plant cell wall and therefore is the most abundant biopolymer on Earth. However, cellulose synthesis is not limited to the plant kingdom: it is also found in a wide variety of bacteria, as well as in oomycetes, algae, slime mold, and urochordates, which are the only animals that synthesize cellulose. Nevert...
Plant roots sense salt gradients in soil to avoid saline environments through halotropism. Here, we present a protocol to study halotropism with an optimized split-agar system that simulates the salt gradient in soil. We describe steps for preparation of the split-agar system, measurement of Na+, and observation of root bending. We then detail segm...
The preparation of biological samples, especially for live-cell microscopy, remains a major experimental challenge in the lab despite technological advances. In addition, high-resolution microscopy techniques require higher sample quality and uniformity, which is difficult to ensure during manual preparation while maintaining “ideal” growth conditi...
Cell wall expansion is a key element in determining plant morphology and growth, and cell wall integrity changes are relayed to the cell to fine-tune growth responses. Here, we show that variations in the ectodomain of a cell wall-associated receptor-like kinase, WAK10, in temperate Oryza japonica accessions differentially amplify fluctuations in c...
Jasmonic acid (JA), ethylene (ET) and salicylic acid (SA) are the three major phytohormones coordinating a plant’s defense response to pathogenic attack. While JA and ET are assumed to primarily control the defense against necrotrophic pathogens, SA-induced defense responses target mainly biotrophic microbes, and can include drastic measures such a...
The regulatory sequences controlling the expression of a gene (i.e. the promoter) are essential to properly understand a gene's function. From their use in mutant complementation assays, to studying their responsiveness to different stimuli via transcriptional reporter lines or using them as proxy for the activation of certain pathways, assays usin...
Filamentous structures are ubiquitous in nature, are studied in diverse scientific fields, and span vastly different spatial scales. Filamentous structures in biological systems fulfil different functions and often form dynamic networks that respond to perturbations. Therefore, characterizing the properties of filamentous structures and the network...
All plant cells are surrounded by a cell wall that provides cohesion, protection and a means of directional growth to plants. Cellulose microfibrils contribute the main biomechanical scaffold for most of these walls. The biosynthesis of cellulose, which typically is the most prominent constituent of the cell wall and therefore Earth’s most abundant...
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Plants have evolved signaling mechanisms that guide growth away from adverse environments that can cause yield losses. Root halotropism is a sodium-specific negative tropism that is crucial for surviving and thriving under high salinity. Although root halotropism was discovered some years ago, the underlying molecular and cellular mechanisms remain...
High-amylose maize starch (HAMS) can provide dietary fiber to foods. In this study, we investigated the effects of three HAMSs (Gelose 50, Hylon VII, and NAFU50) on the functionality of casein (CA) and/or whey protein (WP) networks in acidified milk gels using normal maize starch (NMS) as a control thickener. When compared with NMS, HAMSs performed...
Salt stress simultaneously causes ionic toxicity, osmotic stress and oxidative stress, which directly impact plant growth and development. Plants have developed numerous strategies to adapt to saline environments. Whereas some of these strategies have been investigated and exploited for crop improvement, much remains to be understood, including how...
Energy is essential for all cellular functions in a living organism. How cells coordinate their physiological processes with energy status and availability is thus an important question. The turnover of actin cytoskeleton between its monomeric and filamentous forms is a major energy drain in eukaryotic cells. However, how actin dynamics are regulat...
Cellulose and lignin are critical cell wall components for plant morphogenesis and adaptation to environmental conditions. The cytoskeleton supports cell wall deposition, but much of the underpinning regulatory components remain unknown. Here, we show that an APETALA2/ETHYLENE RESPONSE FACTOR (AP2/ERF) family transcription factor, OsERF34, directly...
Foxtail millet (Setaria italica), which was domesticated from the wild species green foxtail (Setaria viridis), is a rich source of phytonutrients for humans. To evaluate how breeding changed the metabolome of foxtail millet grains, we generated and analyzed datasets encompassing genomes, transcriptomes, metabolomes and anti-inflammatory indices fr...
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Plants have evolved signaling mechanisms that guide growth away from adverse environments that can cause yield losses. Root halotropism is a sodium-specific negative tropism that is crucial for surviving and thriving under high salinity. Although root halotropism was discovered some years ago, the underlying molecular and cellular mechanisms remain...
Rice (Oryza sativa) is one of our main food crops, feeding around 3.5 billion people worldwide. An increasing number of studies note the importance of the cytoskeleton, including actin filaments and microtubules, on rice development and environmental responses. Yet, reliable in vivo cytoskeleton markers are lacking in rice, which critically limits...
All plant cells are encased in primary cell walls that determine plant morphology, but also protect the cells against the environment. Certain cells also produce a secondary wall that supports mechanically demanding processes, such as maintaining plant body stature and water transport inside plants. Both these walls are primarily composed of polysa...
Jasmonate (JA) critically regulates plant development and stress response, but its spatio-temporal distribution at the cellular level remains unclear. A JA biosensor consisting of a JA degron motif Jas9 fused with the fluorescent protein VENUS was developed in Arabidopsis (Larrieu et al., 2015), but its 35S promoter has low activity in reproductive...
Jasmonates (JA) are key phytohormones that regulate plant responses and development. JASMONATE‐ZIM DOMAIN (JAZ) proteins safeguard JA signaling by repressing JA‐responsive gene expression in the absence of JA. However, the interaction and cooperative roles of JAZ repressors remain unclear during plant development. Here, we found that OsJAZ6 interac...
Flag leaf angle impacts the photosynthetic capacity of densely grown plants and is thus an important agronomic breeding trait for crop architecture and yield. The hormone auxin plays a key role in regulating this trait, yet the underlying molecular and cellular mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we report that two rice (Oryza sativa) auxin response f...
Growth, development, structure as well as dynamic adaptations and remodelling processes in plants are largely controlled by the properties of their cell walls. These intricate wall structures are mostly made up of different sugars connected through specific glycosidic linkages but also contain many glycosylated proteins. A key plant sugar that is p...
Adjacent plant cells are connected by specialized cell wall regions, called middle lamellae, which influence critical agricultural characteristics, including fruit ripening and organ abscission. Middle lamellae are enriched in pectin polysaccharides, specifically homogalacturonan (HG). Here, we identify a plant-specific Arabidopsis DUF1068 protein,...
Cellulose is produced at the plasma membrane of plant cells by cellulose synthase (CESA) complexes (CSCs). CSCs are assembled in the endomembrane system and then trafficked to the plasma membrane. Because CESAs are only active in the plasma membrane, control of CSC secretion regulates cellulose synthesis. We identified members of a family of seven...
Plant cell wall-derived biomass serves as a renewable source of energy and materials with increasing importance. The cell walls are biomacromolecular assemblies defined by a fine arrangement of different classes of polysaccharides, proteoglycans, and aromatic polymers and are one of the most complex structures in Nature. One of the most challenging...
Significance
Cellulose is the most abundant biopolymer on Earth and has many potential industrial applications, such as renewable energy and sustainable materials. Here we report the apo and UDP-glucose (UDP-Glc)–bound crystal structures of the catalytic domain of Arabidopsis thaliana CESA3. Our results offer a structural basis for how the substrat...
The force of gravity is a constant environmental factor. Plant shoots respond to gravity through negative gravitropism and gravity resistance. These responses are essential for plants to direct the growth of aerial organs away from the soil surface after germination and to keep an upright posture above ground. We took advantage of the effect of bra...
Plants are the tallest organisms on Earth; a feature sustained by solute-transporting xylem vessels in the plant vasculature. The xylem vessels are supported by strong cell walls that are assembled in intricate patterns. Cortical microtubules direct wall deposition and need to rapidly re-organize during xylem cell development. Here, we establish lo...
Cell shape is crucial for the function and development of organisms. Yet, versatile frameworks for cell shape quantification, comparison, and classification remain underdeveloped. Here, we introduce a visibility graph representation of shapes that facilitates network-driven characterization and analyses across shapes encountered in different domain...
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Floral patterning is regulated by intricate networks of floral identity genes. The peculiar MADS32 subfamily genes, absent in eudicots but prevalent in monocots, control floral organ identity. However, how the MADS32 family genes interact with other floral homeotic genes during flower development is mostly unknown. We show here that the rice homeot...
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Floral patterning is regulated by intricate networks of floral identity genes. The peculiar MADS32 subfamily genes, absent in eudicots but prevalent in monocots, regulate floral organ identity. However, how the MADS32 family genes interact with other floral homeotic genes during flower development is mostly unknown. We show here that the rice homeo...
The highly variable and species-specific pollen surface patterns are formed by sporopollenin accumulation. The template for sporopollenin deposition and polymerization is the primexine that appears on the tetrad surface, but the mechanism(s) by which primexine guides exine patterning remain elusive. Here, we report that the Poaceae-specific EXINE P...
Cellulose synthesis is essential for plant morphology, water transport and defense, and provides raw material for biomaterials and fuels. Cellulose is produced at the plasma membrane by Cellulose Synthase (CESA) protein complexes (CSCs). CSCs are assembled in the endomembrane system and then trafficked from the Golgi apparatus and trans -Golgi Netw...
The spikelet is a unique structure of inflorescence in grasses that generates one to many flowers depending on its determinate or indeterminate meristem activity. The growth patterns and number of spikelets, furthermore, define inflorescence architecture and yield. Therefore, understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying spikelet development an...
Background:
Phytohormones are small molecules that regulate virtually every aspect of plant growth and development; from basic cellular processes, such as cell expansion and division, to whole plant environmental responses. While the phytohormone levels and distribution thus tell the plant how to adjust itself, the corresponding growth alterations...
The vacuole is indispensable for cells to maintain their water potential and to respond to environmental changes. Nevertheless, investigations of vacuole morphology and its functions have been limited to Arabidopsis thaliana with few studies in the model crop rice (Oryza sativa). Here, we report the establishment of bright rice vacuole fluorescent...
Although Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated 9 (Cas9) system has been widely used for basic research in model plants, its application for applied breeding in crops have faced strong regulatory obstacles, due mainly to a poor understanding the authentic output of this system, particularly in higher ge...
Cortical microtubules can direct the orientation of newly synthesized cellulose fibres in plant cell walls. However, cell wall-mediated steering mechanisms have also been anticipated. New research reveals that cellulose synthesis may be directed by pre-existing cellulose fibres in the walls.
Plants are the tallest organisms on Earth; a feature sustained by solute-transporting xylem vessels in the plant vasculature. The xylem vessels are supported by strong cell walls that are assembled in intricate patterns. Cortical microtubules direct wall deposition and need to rapidly re-organize during xylem cell development. We established long-t...
Motivation:
Actin filaments are dynamic structures that substantially change their organization over time. The dynamic behavior and the relatively low signal-to-noise ratio during live-cell imaging have rendered the quantification of the actin organization a difficult task.
Results:
We developed an automated image-based framework that extracts a...
Light and gravity are two key determinants in orientating plant stems for proper growth and development. The organization and dynamics of the actin cytoskeleton are essential for cell biology and critically regulated by actin-binding proteins. However, the role of actin cytoskeleton in shoot negative gravitropism remains controversial. In this work...
How organisms attain their specific shapes and modify their growth patterns in response to environmental and chemical signals has been the subject of many investigations. Plant cells are at high turgor pressure and are surrounded by a rigid yet flexible cell wall, which is the primary determinant of plant growth and morphogenesis. Cellulose microfi...
Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) fibres consist of single cells that grow in a highly polarized manner, assumed to be controlled by the cytoskeleton1–3. However, how the cytoskeletal organization and dynamics underpin fibre development remains unexplored. Moreover, it is unclear whether cotton fibres expand via tip growth or diffuse growth2–4. We genera...
The cytoskeleton is key to many essential processes in a plant cell, e.g., growth, division, and defense. Contrary to what “skeleton” implies, the cytoskeleton is highly dynamic, and is able to re‐organize itself continuously. The advent of live‐cell microscopy and the development of genetically encoded fluorophores enabled detailed observation of...
Cellulose is an essential morphogenic polysaccharide that is central to the stability of plant cell walls and provides an important raw material for a range of plant-based fiber and fuel industries. The past decade has seen a substantial rise in the identification of cellulose synthesis-related components and in our understanding of how these compo...
Shoot gravitropism is essential for plants to direct the growth of above-ground tissues towards the soil surface after germination. Brassinosteroids influence shoot gravitropism and we used this as a tool to untangle the function of cell wall polymers during etiolated shoot growth. The ability of etiolated Arabidopsis seedlings to grow upwards was...
Microtubules are filamentous structures necessary for cell division, motility and morphology. Microtubule dynamics are critically regulated by microtubule-associated proteins (MAPs). We outline the molecular mechanism by which the MAP, COMPANION OF CELLULOSE SYNTHASE1 (CC1), controls microtubule-bundling and dynamics in plants under salt stress con...
Jasmonates (JAs) are crucial to the coordination of plant stress responses and development. JA signaling depends on JASMONATE-ZIM DOMAIN (JAZ) proteins that are destroyed by the SCFCOI1-mediated 26S proteasome when the JAZ co-receptor COI1 binds active JA or the JA-mimicking phytotoxin coronatine (COR). JAZ degradation releases JAZ-interacting tran...
The ability to detect the interaction partners of a protein and how those interactions occur are central to the study of biology. Indeed, such knowledge can provide important clues to unravel the functional context of proteins in specific pathways. This review provides an overview of the different techniques available to plant researchers to study...
Glycosylation requires activated glycosyl donors in the form of nucleotide sugars to drive processes such as post-translational protein modifications and glycolipid and polysaccharide biosynthesis. Most of these reactions occur in the Golgi, requiring cytosolic-derived nucleotide sugars, which need to be actively transferred into the Golgi lumen by...
The bulk of a plant's biomass, termed secondary cell walls, accumulates in woody xylem tissues and is largely recalcitrant to biochemical degradation and saccharification1. By contrast, primary cell walls, which are chemically distinct, flexible and generally unlignified2, are easier to deconstruct. Thus, engineering certain primary wall characteri...
Microtubules are filamentous structures necessary for cell division, motility and morphology, with dynamics critically regulated by microtubule-associated proteins (MAPs). We outline the molecular mechanism by which the MAP, COMPANION OF CELLULOSE SYNTHASE1 (CC1), controls microtubule bundling and dynamics to sustain plant growth under salt stress....
Nutrients are critical for plants to grow and develop, and nutrient depletion severely affects crop yield. In order to optimize nutrient acquisition, plants adapt their growth and root architecture. Changes in growth are determined by modifications in the cell walls surrounding every plant cell. The plant cell wall, which is largely composed of com...
During plant growth and defense, cell cycle activity needs to be coordinated with cell wall integrity. Little is known about how coordination is achieved. Here we investigated coordination in Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings by studying the impact of cell wall damage (CWD, caused by cellulose biosynthesis inhibition) on cytokinin homeostasis, cell cy...
Upon illumination, etiolated seedlings experience a transition from heterotrophic to photoautotrophic growth. During this process, the tetrapyrrole biosynthesis pathway provides chlorophyll for photosynthesis. This pathway has to be tightly controlled to prevent accumulation of photoreactive metabolites and to provide stoichiometric amounts of chlo...
