The Lipid Flippases ALA4 and ALA5 Play Critical Roles in Cell Expansion and Plant Growth.

Aminophospholipid ATPases (ALAs) are lipid flippases involved in transporting specific lipids across membrane bilayers. Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) contains 12 ALAs in five phylogenetic clusters, including four in cluster 3 (ALA4-ALA7). ALA4/5 and ALA6/7, are expressed primarily in vegetative tissues and pollen, respectively. Previously, a double knockout of ALA6/7 was shown to result in pollen fertility defects. Here we show that a double knockout of ALA4/5 results in dwarfism, characterized by reduced growth in rosettes (6.5-fold), roots (4.3-fold), bolts (4.5-fold), and hypocotyls (2-fold). Reduced cell size was observed for multiple vegetative cell types, suggesting a role for ALA4/5 in cellular expansion. Members of the third ALA cluster are at least partially interchangeable, as transgenes expressing ALA6 in vegetative tissues partially rescued ala4/5 mutant phenotypes, and expression of ALA4 transgenes in pollen fully rescued ala6/7 mutant fertility defects. ALA4-GFP displayed plasma membrane and endomembrane localization patterns when imaged in both guard cells and pollen. Lipid profiling revealed ala4/5 rosettes had perturbations in glycerolipid and sphingolipid content. Assays in yeast revealed that ALA5 can flip a variety of glycerolipids and the sphingolipid sphingomyelin across membranes. These results support a model whereby the flippase activity of ALA4 and ALA5 impacts the homeostasis of both glycerolipids and sphingolipids and is important for cellular expansion during vegetative growth.

Distribution of contaminants in the environment and wildlife habitat use: a case study with lead and waterfowl on the Upper Texas Coast.

The magnitude and distribution of lead contamination remain unknown in wetland systems. Anthropogenic deposition of lead may be contributing to negative population-level effects in waterfowl and other organisms that depend on dynamic wetland habitats, particularly if they are unable to detect and differentiate levels of environmental contamination by lead. Detection of lead and behavioral response to elevated lead levels by waterfowl is poorly understood, but necessary to characterize the risk of lead-contaminated habitats. We measured the relationship between lead contamination of wetland soils and habitat use by mottled ducks (Anas fulvigula) on the Upper Texas Coast, USA. Mottled ducks have historically experienced disproportionate negative effects from lead exposure, and exhibit a unique nonmigratory life history that increases risk of exposure when inhabiting contaminated areas. We used spatial interpolation to estimate lead in wetland soils of the Texas Chenier Plain National Wildlife Refuge Complex. Soil lead levels varied across the refuge complex (0.01-1085.51 ppm), but greater lead concentrations frequently corresponded to areas with high densities of transmittered mottled ducks. We used soil lead concentration data and MaxENT species distribution models to quantify relationships among various habitat factors and locations of mottled ducks. Use of habitats with greater lead concentration increased during years of a major disturbance. Because mottled ducks use habitats with high concentrations of lead during periods of stress, have greater risk of exposure following major disturbance to the coastal marsh system, and no innate mechanism for avoiding the threat of lead exposure, we suggest the potential presence of an ecological trap of quality habitat that warrants further quantification at a population scale for mottled ducks.

The RAB GTPase RABA1e localizes to the cell plate and shows distinct subcellular behavior from RABA2a under Endosidin 7 treatment.

Cytokinesis in plants requires the activity of RAB GTPases to regulate vesicle-mediated contribution of material to the developing cell plate. While some plant RAB GTPases have been shown to be involved in cell plate formation, many still await functional assignment. Here, we report cell plate localization for YFP-RABA1e in Arabidopsis thaliana and use the cytokinesis inhibitor Endosidin 7 to provide a detailed description of its localization compared to YFP-RABA2a. Differences between YFP-RABA2a and YFP-RABA1e were observed in late-stage cell plates under DMSO control treatment, and became more apparent under Endosidin 7 treatment. Taken together, our results suggest that individual RAB GTPases might make different contributions to cell plate formation and further demonstrates the utility of ES7 probe to dissect them.

A phospholipid uptake system in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana.

Plants use solar energy to produce lipids directly from inorganic elements and are not thought to require molecular systems for lipid uptake from the environment. Here we show that Arabidopsis thaliana Aminophospholipid ATPase10 (ALA10) is a P4-type ATPase flippase that internalizes exogenous phospholipids across the plasma membrane, after which they are rapidly metabolized. ALA10 expression and phospholipid uptake are high in the epidermal cells of the root tip and in guard cells, the latter of which regulate the size of stomatal apertures to modulate gas exchange. ALA10-knockout mutants exhibit reduced phospholipid uptake at the root tips and guard cells and are affected in growth and transpiration. The presence of a phospholipid uptake system in plants is surprising. Our results suggest that one possible physiological role of this system is to internalize lysophosphatidylcholine, a signalling lipid involved in root development and stomatal control.

Loss of the Arabidopsis thaliana P4-ATPases ALA6 and ALA7 impairs pollen fitness and alters the pollen tube plasma membrane.

Members of the P4 subfamily of P-type ATPases are thought to create and maintain lipid asymmetry in biological membranes by flipping specific lipids between membrane leaflets. In Arabidopsis, 7 of the 12 Aminophospholipid ATPase (ALA) family members are expressed in pollen. Here we show that double knockout of ALA6 and ALA7 (ala6/7) results in siliques with a ~2-fold reduction in seed set with a high frequency of empty seed positions near the bottom. Seed set was reduced to near zero when plants were grown under a hot/cold temperature stress. Reciprocal crosses indicate that the ala6/7 reproductive deficiencies are due to a defect related to pollen transmission. In-vitro growth assays provide evidence that ala6/7 pollen tubes are short and slow, with ~2-fold reductions in both maximal growth rate and overall length relative to wild-type. Outcrosses show that when ala6/7 pollen are in competition with wild-type pollen, they have a near 0% success rate in fertilizing ovules near the bottom of the pistil, consistent with ala6/7 pollen having short and slow growth defects. The ala6/7 phenotypes were rescued by the expression of either an ALA6-YFP or GFP-ALA6 fusion protein, which showed localization to both the plasma membrane and highly-mobile endomembrane structures. A mass spectrometry analysis of mature pollen grains revealed significant differences between ala6/7 and wild-type, both in the relative abundance of lipid classes and in the average number of double bonds present in acyl side chains. A change in the properties of the ala6/7 plasma membrane was also indicated by a ~10-fold reduction of labeling by lipophilic FM-dyes relative to wild-type. Together, these results indicate that ALA6 and ALA7 provide redundant activities that function to directly or indirectly change the distribution and abundance of lipids in pollen, and support a model in which ALA6 and ALA7 are critical for pollen fitness under normal and temperature-stress conditions.

Loss of the Arabidopsis thaliana P4-ATPase ALA3 reduces adaptability to temperature stresses and impairs vegetative, pollen, and ovule development.

Members of the P4 subfamily of P-type ATPases are thought to help create asymmetry in lipid bilayers by flipping specific lipids between the leaflets of a membrane. This asymmetry is believed to be central to the formation of vesicles in the secretory and endocytic pathways. In Arabidopsis thaliana, a P4-ATPase associated with the trans-Golgi network (ALA3) was previously reported to be important for vegetative growth and reproductive success. Here we show that multiple phenotypes for ala3 knockouts are sensitive to growth conditions. For example, ala3 rosette size was observed to be dependent upon both temperature and soil, and varied between 40% and 80% that of wild-type under different conditions. We also demonstrate that ala3 mutants have reduced fecundity resulting from a combination of decreased ovule production and pollen tube growth defects. In-vitro pollen tube growth assays showed that ala3 pollen germinated ∼2 h slower than wild-type and had approximately 2-fold reductions in both maximal growth rate and overall length. In genetic crosses under conditions of hot days and cold nights, pollen fitness was reduced by at least 90-fold; from ∼18% transmission efficiency (unstressed) to less than 0.2% (stressed). Together, these results support a model in which ALA3 functions to modify endomembranes in multiple cell types, enabling structural changes, or signaling functions that are critical in plants for normal development and adaptation to varied growth environments.

Elemental concentrations in the seed of mutants and natural variants of Arabidopsis thaliana grown under varying soil conditions.

The concentrations of mineral nutrients in seeds are critical to both the life cycle of plants as well as human nutrition. These concentrations are strongly influenced by soil conditions, as shown here by quantifying the concentration of 14 elements in seeds from Arabidopsis thaliana plants grown under four different soil conditions: standard, or modified with NaCl, heavy metals, or alkali. Each of the modified soils resulted in a unique change to the seed ionome (the mineral nutrient content of the seeds). To help identify the genetic networks regulating the seed ionome, changes in elemental concentrations were evaluated using mutants corresponding to 760 genes as well as 10 naturally occurring accessions. The frequency of ionomic phenotypes supports an estimate that as much as 11% of the A. thaliana genome encodes proteins of functional relevance to ion homeostasis in seeds. A subset of mutants were analyzed with two independent alleles, providing five examples of genes important for regulation of the seed ionome: SOS2, ABH1, CCC, At3g14280 and CNGC2. In a comparison of nine different accessions to a Col-0 reference, eight accessions were observed to have reproducible differences in elemental concentrations, seven of which were dependent on specific soil conditions. These results indicate that the A. thaliana seed ionome is distinct from the vegetative ionome, and that elemental analysis is a sensitive approach to identify genes controlling ion homeostasis, including those that regulate gene expression, phospho-regulation, and ion transport.

A cyclic nucleotide-gated channel (CNGC16) in pollen is critical for stress tolerance in pollen reproductive development.

Cyclic nucleotide-gated channels (CNGCs) have been implicated in diverse aspects of plant growth and development, including responses to biotic and abiotic stress, as well as pollen tube growth and fertility. Here, genetic evidence identifies CNGC16 in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) as critical for pollen fertility under conditions of heat stress and drought. Two independent transfer DNA disruptions of cngc16 resulted in a greater than 10-fold stress-dependent reduction in pollen fitness and seed set. This phenotype was fully rescued through pollen expression of a CNGC16 transgene, indicating that cngc16-1 and 16-2 were both loss-of-function null alleles. The most stress-sensitive period for cngc16 pollen was during germination and the initiation of pollen tube tip growth. Pollen viability assays indicate that mutant pollen are also hypersensitive to external calcium chloride, a phenomenon analogous to calcium chloride hypersensitivities observed in other cngc mutants. A heat stress was found to increase concentrations of 3',5'-cyclic guanyl monophosphate in both pollen and leaves, as detected using an antibody-binding assay. A quantitative PCR analysis indicates that cngc16 mutant pollen have attenuated expression of several heat-stress response genes, including two heat shock transcription factor genes, HsfA2 and HsfB1. Together, these results provide evidence for a heat stress response pathway in pollen that connects a cyclic nucleotide signal, a Ca(2+)-permeable ion channel, and a signaling network that activates a downstream transcriptional heat shock response.

The Arabidopsis P4-ATPase ALA3 localizes to the golgi and requires a beta-subunit to function in lipid translocation and secretory vesicle formation.

Vesicle budding in eukaryotes depends on the activity of lipid translocases (P(4)-ATPases) that have been implicated in generating lipid asymmetry between the two leaflets of the membrane and in inducing membrane curvature. We show that Aminophospholipid ATPase3 (ALA3), a member of the P(4)-ATPase subfamily in Arabidopsis thaliana, localizes to the Golgi apparatus and that mutations of ALA3 result in impaired growth of roots and shoots. The growth defect is accompanied by failure of the root cap to release border cells involved in the secretion of molecules required for efficient root interaction with the environment, and ala3 mutants are devoid of the characteristic trans-Golgi proliferation of slime vesicles containing polysaccharides and enzymes for secretion. In yeast complementation experiments, ALA3 function requires interaction with members of a novel family of plant membrane-bound proteins, ALIS1 to ALIS5 (for ALA-Interacting Subunit), and in this host ALA3 and ALIS1 show strong affinity for each other. In planta, ALIS1, like ALA3, localizes to Golgi-like structures and is expressed in root peripheral columella cells. We propose that the ALIS1 protein is a beta-subunit of ALA3 and that this protein complex forms an important part of the Golgi machinery required for secretory processes during plant development.