Discovery of the mechanisms enabling morphological and functional integrity of the plant ER

除了提供商品材料和燃料外，植物细胞还是人类氧气和营养物质的重要来源。像所有真核生物一样，植物的生命依赖于亚细胞环境中被称为细胞器的特殊结构的功能。内质网（ER）是真核生物的一个重要细胞器，其功能和形态在很大程度上是保守的。该项目旨在了解ER如何建立和维持其功能和形态特征。由于内质网是细胞生物合成机制的核心，并且在真核生物中存在着内质网生物学的显著差异，因此在模式植物系统中研究内质网为提高植物作为有用生物分子的主要提供者和支持这个星球上的生命提供了重要的基础。这个关于拟南芥内质网的项目也将提供新的基础知识，这将影响与植物共享内质网生物发生机制的其他生物的研究。此外，它还将通过教育下一代科学家、让高中生和教师参与研究、通过外联活动传播植物科学的发现及其对社会的影响，从而提供社会效益。细胞生物学的一个核心问题是细胞器如何建立和维持它们的身份。由于其丰富多变的形态，ER是探索这一问题的绝佳模型。内质网通过细胞骨架驱动的重塑和将子域锚定到质膜（PM）上，采用了复杂的网状结构。然而，内质网形状的机制以及内质网pm亚域的分化和功能在很大程度上是未知的，特别是在植物中。该研究将利用拟南芥蛋白质组的新成分的发现，这些成分控制内质网形态和与异型膜的相互作用，包括PM。利用一套先进的活细胞成像方法、功能基因组学分析和数学建模，该项目将描述一种新型植物内质网塑造器，定义内质网子域与PM相互作用的分子组成，并确定这些子域如何影响细胞外基质的生物合成和沉积。研究结果将有助于建立植物内质网结构和功能的新范式。由于内质网的完整性和功能是密不可分的，并且内质网具有物种特异性，因此本研究有望显著推进对植物内质网结构和功能的基本认识，并为真核生物内质网生物学的比较研究提供一个框架。

In addition to providing commodity materials and fuels, plant cells are an essential source of oxygen and nutrients to humans. Like all eukaryotes, the life of plants depends on the function of specialized structures, known as organelles that populate the subcellular environment. An essential organelle, whose function and morphology are largely conserved across eukaryotes, is the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). This project seeks to understand how the ER establishes and maintains its functional and morphological identity. As the ER is at the core of the cell's biosynthetic machinery, and because significant variation in ER biology exists among eukaryotes, studying the ER within model plant systems provides an essential foundation to improve plants as primary providers of useful biomolecules and to support life on this planet. This project on the Arabidopsis ER will also provide new fundamental knowledge that will influence the study of other organisms that share mechanisms underlying ER biogenesis with plants. In addition, it will provide societal benefits through education of the next generation of scientists, engagement of high-school students and teachers in research, and by communicating discoveries in plant science and their impact on the society through outreach activities.A central question in cell biology is how organelles establish and maintain their identity. Due to its rich, mutable morphology, the ER is a wonderful model to explore this question. The ER adopts an intricate web-like architecture via cytoskeleton-driven remodelling and anchoring of subdomains to the plasma membrane (PM). However, the mechanisms underlying ER shape as well as differentiation and function of ER-PM subdomains are largely unknown, especially in plants. The research will capitalize on the discovery of novel components of the Arabidopsis proteome that control ER morphology and interaction with heterotypic membranes, including the PM. Using a suite of advanced live-cell imaging approaches, functional genomics analyses and mathematical modeling, the project will characterize a novel plant ER shaper, define the molecular composition of the ER subdomains interacting with the PM and determining how such subdomains influence the biosynthesis and deposition of the extracellular matrix. The results will help create a new paradigm of plant ER structure and function. Since ER integrity and function are inextricably linked and the ER presents species-specific features, this research promises to significantly advance basic understanding of plant ER architecture and function, and provide a framework for comparative insights into ER biology among eukaryotes.