journal contribution
posted on 2024-04-18, 06:44 authored by Rahul S Lathe, Heather E McFarlane, Christopher Kesten, Liu Wang, Ghazanfar KhanGhazanfar Khan, Berit Ebert, Eduardo Antonio Ramírez-Rodríguez, Shuai Zheng, Niels Noord, Kristian Frandsen, Rishikesh P Bhalerao, Staffan Persson 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, called NKS1/ELMO4, that is required for middle lamellae integrity and cell adhesion. NKS1 localizes to the Golgi apparatus and loss of NKS1 results in changes to Golgi structure and function. The nks1 mutants also display HG deficient phenotypes, including reduced seedling growth, changes to cell wall composition, and tissue integrity defects. These phenotypes are comparable to qua1 and qua2 mutants, which are defective in HG biosynthesis. Notably, genetic interactions indicate that NKS1 and the QUAs work in a common pathway. Protein interaction analyses and modeling corroborate that they work together in a stable protein complex with other pectin-related proteins. We propose that NKS1 is an integral part of a large pectin synthesis protein complex and that proper function of this complex is important to support Golgi structure and function.
Funding
R.S.L. acknowledges PhD scholarship from Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst [PKZ:91540412 (formerly A/10/75281)] at Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology; Germany and postdoctoral grant from Kempe foundation (# SMK-1759) to R.P.B. at Umea Plant Science Center, Sweden. H.E.M. acknowledges an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DE170100054), Canadian Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Discovery Grant (2020-05959) and funding from the Canada Research Chairs program as Canada Research Chair in Plant Cell Biology. C.K. and S.P. acknowledge funding from the Novo Nordisk Foundation (Emerging Investigator grant, NNF20OC0060564) and from the Lundbeck foundation (Experiment grant, R346-2020-1546). B.E. acknowledges ARC Future Fellowship and Discovery Project Awards (FT160100276 and DP180102630) and the Inaugural Fellowship from the University of Melbourne Botany Foundation. E.A.R.-R. is supported by a Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología Beca de Posgrado en el Extranjero (2020-000000-01EXTF-00193). G.A.K. acknowledges an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DE210101200) and a Swiss NSF Grant (P400PB_180834/1). N.N. acknowledges funding from Erasmus+ (NL GRONING03). S.P. acknowledges the financial aid of a Villum Investigator (Project ID: 25915), Danish National Research Foundation Chair (DNRF155), and Novo Nordisk Laureate (NNF19OC0056076) grants. K.F. acknowledges the Novo Nordisk Foundation for an Industrial Biotechnology and Environmental Biotechnology Postdoctoral grant (NNF21OC0071799) and the Villum Foundation for an Experiment grant (VIL50427).
History
Publication Date
2024-04-05Journal
PNAS: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of USAVolume
121Issue
15Article Number
e2321759121Pagination
11p.Publisher
National Academy of SciencesISSN
0027-8424Rights Statement
© 2024 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.
This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND).
