Skip Navigation

Journal of Experimental Botany 2009 60(3):955-965; doi:10.1093/jxb/ern344
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow Supplementary Data
Right arrow E-letters: Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when E-letters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Search for citing articles in:
ISI Web of Science (1)
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Bischoff, V.
Right arrow Articles by Scheible, W.-R.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Bischoff, V.
Right arrow Articles by Scheible, W.-R.
Agricola
Right arrow Articles by Bischoff, V.
Right arrow Articles by Scheible, W.-R.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© 2009 The Author(s).
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This paper is available online free of all access charges (see http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/open_access.html for further details)

RESEARCH PAPER

Thaxtomin A affects CESA-complex density, expression of cell wall genes, cell wall composition, and causes ectopic lignification in Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings

Volker Bischoff1 *, Sarah Jane Cookson1, Shuang Wu2 and Wolf-Rüdiger Scheible1,{dagger}

1Max-Planck Institute for Molecular Plant Physiology, Science Park Golm, Am Mühlenberg 1, 14476 Potsdam, Germany
2University of Massachusetts, Biology Department, 611 N. Pleasant Street, Amherst MA 01003, USA

{dagger} To whom correspondence should be addressed: E-mail: scheible{at}mpimp-golm.mpg.de

Thaxtomin A, a phytotoxin produced by Streptomyces eubacteria, is suspected to act as a natural cellulose synthesis inhibitor. This view is confirmed by the results obtained from new chemical, molecular, and microscopic analyses of Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings treated with thaxtomin A. Cell wall analysis shows that thaxtomin A reduces crystalline cellulose, and increases pectins and hemicellulose in the cell wall. Treatment with thaxtomin A also changes the expression of genes involved in primary and secondary cellulose synthesis as well as genes associated with pectin metabolism and cell wall remodelling, in a manner nearly identical to isoxaben. In addition, it induces the expression of several defence-related genes and leads to callose deposition. Defects in cellulose synthesis cause ectopic lignification phenotypes in A. thaliana, and it is shown that lignification is also triggered by thaxtomin A, although in a pattern different from isoxaben. Spinning disc confocal microscopy further reveals that thaxtomin A depletes cellulose synthase complexes from the plasma membrane and results in the accumulation of these particles in a small microtubule-associated compartment. The results provide new and clear evidence for thaxtomin A having a strong impact on cellulose synthesis, thus suggesting that this is its primary mode of action.

Key words: Arabidopsis thaliana, callose, cellulose, defence response, isoxaben, lignin, microtubule, phytotoxin, Streptomyces, thaxtomin

* Present address: INRA, Laboratoire de Biologie Cellulaire, Route de Saint Cyr, 78026 Versailles, France.

Received 4 September 2008; Revised 5 December 2008 Accepted 5 December 2008


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.