Plant ‘muscles’: fibers with a tertiary cell wall

Plants, although sessile organisms, are nonetheless able to move their body parts; for example, during root contraction of geophytes or in the gravitropic reaction by woody stems. One of the major mechanisms enabling these movements is the development of specialized structures that possess contracti...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The New phytologist 2018-04, Vol.218 (1), p.66-72
Main Authors: Gorshkova, Tatyana, Chernova, Tatyana, Mokshina, Natalia, Ageeva, Marina, Mikshina, Polina
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Body parts
Cell walls
Cellulose
Cellulose fibers
Contractility
Contraction
Ecophysiology
Entrapment
Fibers
G‐layer
Interactions
Microfibrils
Muscles
plant fibers
plant movement
Polysaccharides
Properties
Protein interaction
Proteins
Research review
Review
Rhamnogalacturonan
rhamnogalacturonan‐I
Tension
Tertiary
tertiary cell wall
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Plants, although sessile organisms, are nonetheless able to move their body parts; for example, during root contraction of geophytes or in the gravitropic reaction by woody stems. One of the major mechanisms enabling these movements is the development of specialized structures that possess contractile properties. Quite unlike animal muscles, for which the action is driven by protein–protein interactions in the protoplasma, the action of plant ‘muscles’ is polysaccharide-based and located in the uniquely designed, highly cellulosic cell wall that is deposited specifically in fibers. This review describes the development of such cell walls as a widespread phenomenon in the plant kingdom, gives reasons why it should be considered as a tertiary cell wall, and discusses the mechanism of action of the ‘muscles’. The origin of the contractile properties lies in the tension of the axially oriented cellulose microfibrils due to entrapment of rhamnogalact-uronan-I aggregates that limits the lateral interaction of microfibrils. Long side chains of the nascent rhamnogalacturonan-I are trimmed off during cell wall maturation leading to tension development. Similarities in the tertiary cell wall design in fibers of different plant origin indicate that the basic principles of tension creation may be universal in various ecophysiological situations.
ISSN:0028-646X
1469-8137
DOI:10.1111/nph.14997