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JXB Advance Access originally published online on September 9, 2008
Journal of Experimental Botany 2008 59(13):3649-3659; doi:10.1093/jxb/ern215
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© The Author [2008]. Published by Oxford University Press [on behalf of the Society for Experimental Biology]. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

RESEARCH PAPER

The alpha-N-acetyl-glucosaminidase gene is transcriptionally activated in male and female gametes prior to fertilization and is essential for seed development in Arabidopsis

Arnaud Ronceret *, Jose Gadea-Vacas {dagger}, Jocelyne Guilleminot and Martine Devic{ddagger}

Laboratoire Génome et Développement des Plantes, UMR-CNRS-IRD-Université 5096, 52 Avenue Paul Alduy, F-66860 Perpignan-cedex, France

{ddagger} To whom correspondence should be addressed: E-mail: devic{at}univ-perp.fr

Sugar residues in proteoglycan complexes carry important signalling and regulatory functions in biology. In humans, heparan sulphate is an example of such a complex polymer containing glucosamine and N-acetyl-glucosamine residues and is present in the extracellular matrix. Although heparan sulphate has not been found in plants, the At5g13690 gene encoding the alpha-N-acetyl-glucosaminidase (NAGLU), an enzyme involved in its catabolism, is present in the Arabidopsis genome. Among our collection of embryo-defective lines, a plant was identified in which the T-DNA had inserted into the AtNAGLU gene. The phenotype of atnaglu is an early arrest of seed development without apparent male or female gametophytic effects. These data demonstrated the essential function in Arabidopsis consistent with the contribution of NAGLU to the Sanfilippo syndrome in human. Expression of AtNAGLU in plants was shown to be prevalent during reproductive development. The presence of AtNAGLU mRNA was observed during early and late male gametogenesis and in each cell of the embryo sac at the time of fertilization. After fertilization, AtNAGLU was expressed in the embryo, suspensor, and endosperm until the cotyledonary stage embryo. This precise pattern of expression identifies the cells and tissues where a remodelling of the N-acetyl-glucosamine residues of proteoglycan complexes is occurring. This work provides original evidence of the important role of N-acetyl-glucosamines in plant reproductive development.

Key words: Embryogenesis, fertilization, N-acetyl-glucosamine, reproduction, Sanfilippo syndrome

* Present address: Plant Breeding and Genetics, 418 Bradfield Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY14850, USA.

{dagger} Present address: Genomics Laboratory, Institute for Molecular and Cellular Biology of Plants, UPV-CSIC Av. Naranjos s/n, E-46022 Valencia, Spain.

Received 20 May 2008; Revised 28 July 2008 Accepted 29 July 2008


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