RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Bimodally oriented cellulose fibers and reticulated homogalacturonan networks - A direct visualization of Allium cepa primary cell walls
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2022.01.31.478342
DO 10.1101/2022.01.31.478342
A1 William J Nicolas
A1 Florian Fäßler
A1 Przemysław Dutka
A1 Florian KM Schur
A1 Grant Jensen
A1 Elliot Meyerowitz
YR 2022
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/02/01/2022.01.31.478342.abstract
AB One hallmark of plant cells is their pecto-cellulosic cell walls. They protect cells against the environment and high turgor and mediate morphogenesis through the dynamics of their mechanical and chemical properties. The walls are a complex polysaccharidic structure. Although their biochemical composition is well known, how the different components organize in the volume of the cell wall and interact with each other is not well understood and yet is key to the wall’s mechanical properties. To investigate the ultrastructure of the plant cell wall, we imaged the walls of onion (Allium cepa) bulbs in a near-native state via cryo-Focused Ion Beam milling (cryo-FIB-milling) and cryo-Electron Tomography (cryo-ET). This allowed the high-resolution visualization of cellulose fibers in situ (in muro). We reveal the coexistence of dense fiber fields bathed in a reticulated matrix we termed “meshing,” which is more abundant at the inner surface of the cell wall. The fibers adopted a regular bimodal angular distribution at all depths in the cell wall and bundled according to their orientation, creating layers within the cell wall. Concomitantly, employing homogalacturonan (HG)-specific enzymatic digestion, we observed changes in the meshing, suggesting that it is at least in part composed of HG pectins. We propose the following model for the construction of the abaxial epidermal primary cell wall: The cell deposits successive layers of cellulose fibers at −45° and +45° relative to the cell’s long axis and secretes the surrounding HG-rich meshing proximal to the plasma membrane, which then migrates to more distal regions of the cell wall.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.