Mohammed, U., Caine, R.S. orcid.org/0000-0002-6480-218X, Atkinson, J.A. et al. (6 more authors) (2019) Rice plants overexpressing OsEPF1 show reduced stomatal density and increased root cortical aerenchyma formation. Scientific Reports, 9. 5584. ISSN 2045-2322
Abstract
Stomata are adjustable pores in the aerial epidermis of plants. The role of stomata is usually described in terms of the trade-off between CO2 uptake and water loss. Little consideration has been given to their interaction with below-ground development or diffusion of other gases. We overexpressed the rice EPIDERMAL PATTERNING FACTOR1 (OsEPF1) to produce rice plants with reduced stomatal densities, resulting in lowered leaf stomatal conductance and enhanced water use efficiency. Surprisingly, we found that root cortical aerenchyma (RCA) is formed constitutively in OsEPF1OE lines regardless of tissue age and position. Aerenchyma is tissue containing air-spaces that can develop in the plant root during stressful conditions, e.g. oxygen deficiency when it functions to increase O2 diffusion from shoot to root. The relationship with stomata is unknown. We conclude that RCA development and stomatal development are linked by two possible mechanisms: first that reduced stomatal conductance inhibits the diffusion of oxygen to the root, creating an oxygen deficit and stimulating the formation of RCA, second that an unknown EPF signalling pathway may be involved. Our observations have fundamental implications for the understanding of whole plant gas diffusion and root-to-shoot signalling events.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2019 The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > School of Biosciences (Sheffield) > Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number H2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie 700867 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 25 Apr 2019 15:33 |
Last Modified: | 16 Mar 2020 13:26 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Nature Research (part of Springer Nature) |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s41598-019-41922-7 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:145249 |