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JXB Advance Access published online on October 8, 2009
Journal of Experimental Botany, doi:10.1093/jxb/erp299
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© 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/2.5/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

Developmental and molecular physiological evidence for the role of phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase in rapid cotton fibre elongation

Xiao-Rong Li1,2, Lu Wang1,2 and Yong-Ling Ruan1,2,3,*

1Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 300 Fenglin Road, Shanghai 200032, China
2Australian–China Research Centre for Crop Improvement, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia
3School of Environmental and Life Sciences, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia

* To whom correspondence should be addressed: E-mail: Yong-Ling.Ruan{at}newcastle.edu.au

Cotton fibres are hair-like single-cells that elongate to several centimetres long after their initiation from the ovule epidermis at anthesis. The accumulation of malate, along with K+ and sugars, is thought to play an important role in fibre elongation through osmotic regulation and charge balance. However, there is a lack of evidence for or against such an hypothesis. Phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (PEPC) is a key enzyme responsible for the synthesis of malate. The potential role of PEPC in cotton fibre elongation is examined here. Developmentally, PEPC activity was higher at the rapid elongation phase than that at the slow elongation stage. Genotypically, PEPC activity correlated positively with the rate of fibre elongation and the final fibre length attained. Importantly, suppression of PEPC activity by LiCl that reduces its phosphorylation status decreased fibre length. To examine the molecular basis underlying PEPC activity, two cDNAs encoding PEPC, GhPEPC1 and 2, were cloned, which represents the major PEPC genes expressed in cotton fibre. RT-PCR analyses revealed that GhPEPC1 and 2 were highly expressed at the rapid elongation phase but weakly at the slow-to-terminal elongation period. In situ hybridization detected mRNA of GhPEPC1 and 2 in 1 d young fibres but not in the ovule epidermis prior to fibre initiation. Collectively, the data indicate that cotton fibre elongation requires high activity of PEPC, probably through the expression of the GhPEPC1 and 2 genes.

Key words: Cell expansion, cotton, fibre elongation, phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase

Received 9 July 2009; Revised 8 September 2009 Accepted 14 September 2009


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