The mechanics of stomatal function

气孔由一对保卫细胞组成，这些保卫细胞由于内部压力的改变而改变其形状，导致气孔的打开/关闭，以允许植物生命所必需的气体交换。这种形状变化的动态依赖于保卫细胞与周围表皮的机械相互作用，然而这一领域的大多数工作都集中在保卫细胞上，而忽略了邻近的细胞。该项目的总体目标是研究表皮在决定气孔打开/关闭机制中的作用。这个项目的目的是描述表皮细胞和与保卫细胞相邻的特殊附属细胞的细胞壁成分。我们希望找到编码在这些细胞中表达的细胞壁修饰蛋白的基因，并创建转基因植物，在这些植物中，这些基因的表达被改变，以调节支持细胞的机制。我们将对这些植物进行研究，以探讨支持细胞力学改变对气孔功能的影响及其对植物水分利用效率的影响。利用这些知识，有没有可能通过设计气孔复合体来改善植物在未来二氧化碳升高和供水受限的气候条件下的表现？

Stomata consist of pairs of guard cells which change their shape as a result of altered internal pressure, leading to the opening/closing of pores to allow gas exchange essential for plant life. The dynamics of this shape change depend upon mechanical interaction of the guard cells with the surrounding epidermis, however most work in this area has focused on guard cells, ignoring the adjacent cells. The overall aim of the project is to investigate the role of the epidermis in setting the mechanics of stomatal opening/closure. This project aims to characterise the cell wall components of epidermal cells and specialised subsidiary cells which adjoin the guard cells. We hope to identify genes that encode cell wall modifying proteins expressed in these cells and create transgenic plants in which expression of these genes is altered to modulate support cell mechanics. These plants will be studied to investigate the outcome of altered support cell mechanics on stomatal function and its consequence for plant water use efficiency. Using this knowledge, is it possible to engineer stomatal complexes to improve plant performance under future climate conditions of elevated carbon dioxide and restricted water availability?