Cellulose biosynthesis in plant secondary cell walls forms the basis of vascular development in land plants, with xylem tissues constituting the vast majority of terrestrial biomass. We used plant lines that contained an inducible master transcription factor controlling xylem cell fate to quantitatively image fluorescently tagged cellulose synthase enzymes during cellulose deposition in living protoxylem cells. The formation of secondary cell wall thickenings was associated with a redistribution and enrichment of CESA7-containing cellulose synthase complexes (CSCs) into narrow membrane domains. The velocities of secondary cell wall-specific CSCs were faster than those of primary cell wall CSCs during abundant cellulose production. Dynamic intracellular trafficking of endomembranes in combination with increased velocity and high density of CSCs, enables cellulose to be synthesized rapidly in secondary cell walls.

AGJM21PhPTS Illumina's proprietary software was used for basecalling.The reads were aligned using bowtie in single-end mode and with a maximum tolerance of 3 mismatches to the Au10.2 transcripts sequences (http://www.phytozome.net/chlamy), corresponding to the version 4.0 assembly of the Chlamydomonas genome.Expression estimates were obtained for each individual run in units of RPKMs (reads per kilobase of mappable transcript length per million mapped reads) after normalization by the number of aligned reads and transcript mappable length.Genome_build: version 4.0 assembly of the Chlamydomonas genome (http://genome.jgi-psf.org/Chlre4/Chlre4.home.html)Supplementary_files_format_and_content: Processed files correpond to average expression estimates per experiment in units of RPKMs.

The year 2014 marked the 25th International Conference on Arabidopsis Research. In the 50 yr since the first International Conference on Arabidopsis Research, held in 1965 in Gottingen, Germany, > 54 000 papers that mention Arabidopsis thaliana in the title, abstract or keywords have been published. We present herein a citational network analysis of these papers, and touch on some of the important discoveries in plant biology that have been made in this powerful model system, and highlight how these discoveries have then had an impact in crop species. We also look to the future, highlighting some outstanding questions that can be readily addressed in Arabidopsis. Topics that are discussed include Arabidopsis reverse genetic resources, stock centers, databases and online tools, cell biology, development, hormones, plant immunity, signaling in response to abiotic stress, transporters, biosynthesis of cells walls and macro-molecules such as starch and lipids, epigenetics and epigenomics, genome-wide association studies and natural variation, gene regulatory networks, modeling and systems biology, and synthetic biology.

Phosphorus (P) is an essential nutrient that is limiting in many environments. When P is scarce organisms employ strategies for conservation of internal stores, and to efficiently scavenge P from their external surroundings. In this study we investigated the acclimation response of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii to P deficiency, comparing the transcriptional profiles of P starved wild-type cells to the P replete condition. RNA was prepared from P-containing or P-deprived logarithmic growth phase cells and subjected to RNA-Seq analysis. During the 24 hours after the imposition of P starvation we observed that from the 407 significantly changing genes (> 2 fold change, corrected p-value < 0.05) in the wild-type 317 genes were up-regulated, in average 8.36-fold, and 90 genes were down-regulated by 3.43-fold, in average. Many of the upregulated genes encoded enzymes involved in specific responses to P starvation, including PHOX, encoding the major secreted alkaline phosphatase, and multiple putative, high-efficiency phosphate transporter genes. More general responses included the up-regulation of genes involved in photoprotective processes (LHCSR3, LHCSR1, LHCBM9, PTOX1) and genes involved in protein modification and degradation. Down-regulated mRNAs indicated an early stage of the reduction of chloroplast ribosomal proteins, which are considered to be a reservoir for P in the cell.

AGJM21PhMTS Illumina's proprietary software was used for basecalling.The reads were aligned using bowtie in single-end mode and with a maximum tolerance of 3 mismatches to the Au10.2 transcripts sequences (http://www.phytozome.net/chlamy), corresponding to the version 4.0 assembly of the Chlamydomonas genome.Expression estimates were obtained for each individual run in units of RPKMs (reads per kilobase of mappable transcript length per million mapped reads) after normalization by the number of aligned reads and transcript mappable length.Genome_build: version 4.0 assembly of the Chlamydomonas genome (http://genome.jgi-psf.org/Chlre4/Chlre4.home.html)Supplementary_files_format_and_content: Processed files correpond to average expression estimates per experiment in units of RPKMs.

Chlamydomonas reinhardtii insertion mutants disrupted for genes encoding acetate kinases (EC 2.7.2.1) (ACK1 and ACK2) and a phosphate acetyltransferase (EC 2.3.1.8) (PAT2, but not PAT1) were isolated to characterize fermentative acetate production. ACK1 and PAT2 were localized to chloroplasts, while ACK2 and PAT1 were shown to be in mitochondria. Characterization of the mutants showed that PAT2 and ACK1 activity in chloroplasts plays a dominant role (relative to ACK2 and PAT1 in mitochondria) in producing acetate under dark, anoxic conditions and, surprisingly, also suggested that Chlamydomonas has other pathways that generate acetate in the absence of ACK activity. We identified a number of proteins associated with alternative pathways for acetate production that are encoded on the Chlamydomonas genome. Furthermore, we observed that only modest alterations in the accumulation of fermentative products occurred in the ack1, ack2, and ack1 ack2 mutants, which contrasts with the substantial metabolite alterations described in strains devoid of other key fermentation enzymes.

Central to the building and reorganizing cytoskeletal arrays is creation of new polymers. Although nucleation has been the major focus of study for microtubule generation, severing has been proposed as an alternative mechanism to create new polymers, a mechanism recently shown to drive the reorientation of cortical arrays of higher plants in response to blue light perception. Severing produces new plus ends behind the stabilizing GTP-cap. An important and unanswered question is how these ends are stabilized in vivo to promote net microtubule generation. Here we identify the conserved protein CLASP as a potent stabilizer of new plus ends created by katanin severing in plant cells. Clasp mutants are defective in cortical array reorientation. In these mutants, both rescue of shrinking plus ends and the stabilization of plus ends immediately after severing are reduced. Computational modeling reveals that it is the specific stabilization of severed ends that best explains CLASP's function in promoting microtubule amplification by severing and array reorientation.

Symbiosis between unicellular dinoflagellates (genus Symbiodinium) and their cnidarian hosts (e.g. corals, sea anemones) is the foundation of coral reef ecosystems. Dysfunction of this symbiosis under changing environmental conditions has led to global reef decline. Little information is known about Symbiodinium gene expression and mechanisms by which light impacts host-symbiont associations. To address these issues, we generated a transcriptome from axenic Symbiodinium strain SSB01. Here we report features of the transcriptome, including occurrence and length distribution of spliced leader sequences, the functional landscape of encoded proteins and the impact of light on gene expression. Expression of many Symbiodinium genes appears to be significantly impacted by light. Transcript encoding cryptochrome 2 declined in high light while some transcripts for Regulators of Chromatin Condensation (RCC1) declined in the dark. We also identified a transcript encoding a light harvesting AcpPC protein with homology to Chlamydomonas LHCSR2. The level of this transcript increased in high light autotrophic conditions, suggesting that it is involved in photo-protection and the dissipation of excess absorbed light energy. The most extensive changes in transcript abundances occurred when the algae were transferred from low light to darkness. Interestingly, transcripts encoding several cell adhesion proteins rapidly declined following movement of cultures to the dark, which correlated with a dramatic change in cell surface morphology, likely reflecting the complexity of the extracellular matrix. Thus, light-sensitive cell adhesion proteins may play a role in establishing surface architecture, which may in turn alter interactions between the endosymbiont and its host.