Cell wall proteome of sugarcane stems: comparison of a destructive and a non-destructive extraction method showed differences in glycoside hydrolases and peroxidases.

BACKGROUND: Sugarcane has been used as the main crop for ethanol production for more than 40 years in Brazil. Recently, the production of bioethanol from bagasse and straw, also called second generation (2G) ethanol, became a reality with the first commercial plants started in the USA and Brazil. However, the industrial processes still need to be improved to generate a low cost fuel. One possibility is the remodeling of cell walls, by means of genetic improvement or transgenesis, in order to make the bagasse more accessible to hydrolytic enzymes. We aimed at characterizing the cell wall proteome of young sugarcane culms, to identify proteins involved in cell wall biogenesis. Proteins were extracted from the cell walls of 2-month-old culms using two protocols, non-destructive by vacuum infiltration vs destructive. The proteins were identified by mass spectrometry and bioinformatics. RESULTS: A predicted signal peptide was found in 84 different proteins, called cell wall proteins (CWPs). As expected, the non-destructive method showed a lower percentage of proteins predicted to be intracellular than the destructive one (33% vs 44%). About 19% of CWPs were identified with both methods, whilst the infiltration protocol could lead to the identification of 75% more CWPs. In both cases, the most populated protein functional classes were those of proteins related to lipid metabolism and oxido-reductases. Curiously, a single glycoside hydrolase (GH) was identified using the non-destructive method whereas 10 GHs were found with the destructive one. Quantitative data analysis allowed the identification of the most abundant proteins. CONCLUSIONS: The results highlighted the importance of using different protocols to extract proteins from cell walls to expand the coverage of the cell wall proteome. Ten GHs were indicated as possible targets for further studies in order to obtain cell walls less recalcitrant to deconstruction. Therefore, this work contributed to two goals: enlarge the coverage of the sugarcane cell wall proteome, and provide target proteins that could be used in future research to facilitate 2G ethanol production.

Localizing proteins by tissue printing.

The simple technique of making tissue prints on appropriate substrate material has made possible the easy localization of proteins, nucleic acids, carbohydrates, and small molecules in a tissue-specific mode. Plant tissues can be used to produce prints revealing a remarkable amount of anatomical detail, even without staining, which might be used to record developmental changes over time. In this chapter we will focus on the protocols for the localization of proteins and glycans using antibodies or lectins, probably the most frequently used application, but the localization of other molecules is reported and the sources indicated.

Brachypodium distachyon as a model plant toward improved biofuel crops: Search for secreted proteins involved in biogenesis and disassembly of cell wall polymers.

Polysaccharides make up about 75% of plant cell walls and can be broken down to produce sugar substrates (saccharification) from which a whole range of products can be obtained, including bioethanol. Cell walls also contain 5-10% of proteins, which could be used to tailor them for agroindustrial uses. Here we present cell wall proteomics data of Brachypodium distachyon, a model plant for temperate grasses. Leaves and culms were analyzed during active growth and at mature stage. Altogether, 559 proteins were identified by LC-MS/MS and bioinformatics, among which 314 have predicted signal peptides. Sixty-three proteins were shared by two organs at two developmental stages where they could play housekeeping functions. Differences were observed between organs and stages of development, especially at the level of glycoside hydrolases and oxidoreductases. Differences were also found between the known cell wall proteomes of B. distachyon, Oryza sativa, and the Arabidopsis thaliana dicot. Three glycoside hydrolases could be immunolocalized in cell walls using polyclonal antibodies against proteotypic peptides. Organ-specific expression consistent with proteomics results could be observed as well as cell-specific localization. Moreover, the high number of proteins of unknown function in B. distachyon cell wall proteomes opens new fields of research for monocot cell walls.

Analysis of the xylem sap proteome of Brassica oleracea reveals a high content in secreted proteins.

Xylem plays a major role in plant development and is considered part of the apoplast. Here, we studied the proteome of Brassica oleracea cv Bartolo and compared it to the plant cell wall proteome of another Brassicaceae, the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. B. oleracea was chosen because it is technically difficult to harvest enough A. thaliana xylem sap for proteomic analysis. We studied the whole proteome and an N-glycoproteome obtained after Concanavalin A affinity chromatography. Altogether, 189 proteins were identified by LC-MS/MS using Brassica EST and cDNA sequences. A predicted signal peptide was found in 164 proteins suggesting that most proteins of the xylem sap are secreted. Eighty-one proteins were identified in the N-glycoproteome, with 25 of them specific of this fraction, suggesting that they were concentrated during the chromatography step. All the protein families identified in this study were found in the cell wall proteomes. However, proteases and oxido-reductases were more numerous in the xylem sap proteome, whereas enzyme inhibitors were rare. The origin of xylem sap proteins is discussed. All the experimental data including the MS/MS data were made available in the WallProtDB cell wall proteomic database.

Cell wall biogenesis of Arabidopsis thaliana elongating cells: transcriptomics complements proteomics.

BACKGROUND: Plant growth is a complex process involving cell division and elongation. Arabidopsis thaliana hypocotyls undergo a 100-fold length increase mainly by cell elongation. Cell enlargement implicates significant changes in the composition and structure of the cell wall. In order to understand cell wall biogenesis during cell elongation, mRNA profiling was made on half- (active elongation) and fully-grown (after growth arrest) etiolated hypocotyls. RESULTS: Transcriptomic analysis was focused on two sets of genes. The first set of 856 genes named cell wall genes (CWGs) included genes known to be involved in cell wall biogenesis. A significant proportion of them has detectable levels of transcripts (55.5%), suggesting that these processes are important throughout hypocotyl elongation and after growth arrest. Genes encoding proteins involved in substrate generation or in synthesis of polysaccharides, and extracellular proteins were found to have high transcript levels. A second set of 2927 genes labeled secretory pathway genes (SPGs) was studied to search for new genes encoding secreted proteins possibly involved in wall expansion. Based on transcript level, 433 genes were selected. Genes not known to be involved in cell elongation were found to have high levels of transcripts. Encoded proteins were proteases, protease inhibitors, proteins with interacting domains, and proteins involved in lipid metabolism. In addition, 125 of them encoded proteins with yet unknown function. Finally, comparison with results of a cell wall proteomic study on the same material revealed that 48 out of the 137 identified proteins were products of the genes having high or moderate level of transcripts. About 15% of the genes encoding proteins identified by proteomics showed levels of transcripts below background. CONCLUSION: Members of known multigenic families involved in cell wall biogenesis, and new genes that might participate in cell elongation were identified. Significant differences were shown in the expression of such genes in half- and fully-grown hypocotyls. No clear correlation was found between the abundance of transcripts (transcriptomic data) and the presence of the proteins (proteomic data) demonstrating (i) the importance of post-transcriptional events for the regulation of genes during cell elongation and (ii) that transcriptomic and proteomic data are complementary.

Plant cell wall proteomics: mass spectrometry data, a trove for research on protein structure/function relationships.

Proteomics allows the large-scale study of protein expression either in whole organisms or in purified organelles. In particular, mass spectrometry (MS) analysis of gel-separated proteins produces data not only for protein identification, but for protein structure, location, and processing as well. An in-depth analysis was performed on MS data from etiolated hypocotyl cell wall proteomics of Arabidopsis thaliana. These analyses show that highly homologous members of multigene families can be differentiated. Two lectins presenting 93% amino acid identity were identified using peptide mass fingerprinting. Although the identification of structural proteins such as extensins or hydroxyproline/proline-rich proteins (H/PRPs) is arduous, different types of MS spectra were exploited to identify and characterize an H/PRP. Maturation events in a couple of cell wall proteins (CWPs) were analyzed using site mapping. N-glycosylation of CWPs as well as the hydroxylation or oxidation of amino acids were also explored, adding information to improve our understanding of CWP structure/function relationships. A bioinformatic tool was developed to locate by means of MS the N-terminus of mature secreted proteins and N-glycosylation.

Localizing proteins by tissue printing.

The simple technique of making tissue prints on appropriate substrate material has made possible the easy localization of proteins, nucleic acids, carbohydrates, and small molecules in a tissue-specific mode. Plant tissues can be used to produce prints revealing a remarkable amount of anatomical detail, even without staining, which might be used to record developmental changes over time. In this chapter we will focus on the protocols for the localization of proteins and glycans using antibodies or lectins, probably the most frequently used application, but the localization of other molecules is reported and the sources indicated.

Bioinformatics as a tool for assessing the quality of sub-cellular proteomic strategies and inferring functions of proteins: plant cell wall proteomics as a test case.

Bioinformatics is used at three different steps of proteomic studies of sub-cellular compartments. First one is protein identification from mass spectrometry data. Second one is prediction of sub-cellular localization, and third one is the search of functional domains to predict the function of identified proteins in order to answer biological questions. The aim of the work was to get a new tool for improving the quality of proteomics of sub-cellular compartments. Starting from the analysis of problems found in databases, we designed a new Arabidopsis database named ProtAnnDB (http://www.polebio.scsv.ups-tlse.fr/ProtAnnDB/). It collects in one page predictions of sub-cellular localization and of functional domains made by available software. Using this database allows not only improvement of interpretation of proteomic data (top-down analysis), but also of procedures to isolate sub-cellular compartments (bottom-up quality control).

A new picture of cell wall protein dynamics in elongating cells of Arabidopsis thaliana: confirmed actors and newcomers.

BACKGROUND: Cell elongation in plants requires addition and re-arrangements of cell wall components. Even if some protein families have been shown to play roles in these events, a global picture of proteins present in cell walls of elongating cells is still missing. A proteomic study was performed on etiolated hypocotyls of Arabidopsis used as model of cells undergoing elongation followed by growth arrest within a short time. RESULTS: Two developmental stages (active growth and after growth arrest) were compared. A new strategy consisting of high performance cation exchange chromatography and mono-dimensional electrophoresis was established for separation of cell wall proteins. This work allowed identification of 137 predicted secreted proteins, among which 51 had not been identified previously. Apart from expected proteins known to be involved in cell wall extension such as xyloglucan endotransglucosylase-hydrolases, expansins, polygalacturonases, pectin methylesterases and peroxidases, new proteins were identified such as proteases, proteins related to lipid metabolism and proteins of unknown function. CONCLUSION: This work highlights the CWP dynamics that takes place between the two developmental stages. The presence of proteins known to be related to cell wall extension after growth arrest showed that these proteins may play other roles in cell walls. Finally, putative regulatory mechanisms of protein biological activity are discussed from this global view of cell wall proteins.

Isolation of plant cell wall proteins.

The quality of a proteomic analysis of a cell compartment strongly depends on the reliability of the isolation procedure for the cell compartment of interest. Plant cell walls possess specific drawbacks: (1) the lack of a surrounding membrane may result in the loss of cell wall proteins (CWP) during the isolation procedure; (2) polysaccharide networks of cellulose, hemicelluloses, and pectins form potential traps for contaminants such as intracellular proteins; (3) the presence of proteins interacting in many different ways with the polysaccharide matrix require different procedures to elute them from the cell wall. Three categories of CWP are distinguished: labile proteins that have little or no interactions with cell wall components, weakly bound proteins extractable with salts, and strongly bound proteins. Two alternative protocols are decribed for cell wall proteomics: (1) nondestructive techniques allowing the extraction of labile or weakly bound CWP without damaging the plasma membrane; (2) destructive techniques to isolate cell walls from which weakly or strongly bound CWP can be extracted. These protocols give very low levels of contamination by intracellular proteins. Their application should lead to a realistic view of the cell wall proteome at least for labile and weakly bound CWP extractable by salts.

Recent advances in plant cell wall proteomics.

The plant extracellular matrix contains typical polysaccharides such as cellulose, hemicelluloses, and pectins that interact to form dense interwoven networks. Plant cell walls play crucial roles during development and constitute the first barrier of defense against invading pathogens. Cell wall proteomics has greatly contributed to the description of the protein content of a compartment specific to plants. Around 400 cell wall proteins (CWPs) of Arabidopsis, representing about one fourth of its estimated cell wall proteome, have been described. The main points to note are that: (i) the diversity of enzymes acting on polysaccharides suggests a great plasticity of cell walls; (ii) CWPs such as proteases, polysaccharide hydrolytic enzymes, and lipases may contribute to the generation of signals; (iii) proteins of unknown functions were identified, suggesting new roles for cell walls. Recently, the characterization of PTMs such as N- and O-glycosylations improved our knowledge of CWP structure. The presence of many glycoside hydrolases and proteases suggests a complex regulation of CWPs involving various types of post-translational events. The first 3-D structures to be resolved gave clues about the interactions between CWPs, or between CWPs and polysaccharides. Future work should include: extracting and identifying CWPs still recalcitrant to proteomics, describing the cell wall interactome, improving quantification, and unraveling the roles of each of the CWPs.

Evaluation of cell wall preparations for proteomics: a new procedure for purifying cell walls from Arabidopsis hypocotyls.

BACKGROUND: The ultimate goal of proteomic analysis of a cell compartment should be the exhaustive identification of resident proteins; excluding proteins from other cell compartments. Reaching such a goal closely depends on the reliability of the isolation procedure for the cell compartment of interest. Plant cell walls possess specific difficulties: (i) the lack of a surrounding membrane may result in the loss of cell wall proteins (CWP) during the isolation procedure, (ii) polysaccharide networks of cellulose, hemicelluloses and pectins form potential traps for contaminants such as intracellular proteins. Several reported procedures to isolate cell walls for proteomic analyses led to the isolation of a high proportion (more than 50%) of predicted intracellular proteins. Since isolated cell walls should hold secreted proteins, one can imagine alternative procedures to prepare cell walls containing a lower proportion of contaminant proteins. RESULTS: The rationales of several published procedures to isolate cell walls for proteomics were analyzed, with regard to the bioinformatic-predicted subcellular localization of the identified proteins. Critical steps were revealed: (i) homogenization in low ionic strength acid buffer to retain CWP, (ii) purification through increasing density cushions, (iii) extensive washes with a low ionic strength acid buffer to retain CWP while removing as many cytosolic proteins as possible, and (iv) absence of detergents. A new procedure was developed to prepare cell walls from etiolated hypocotyls of Arabidopsis thaliana. After salt extraction, a high proportion of proteins predicted to be secreted was released (73%), belonging to the same functional classes as proteins identified using previously described protocols. Finally, removal of intracellular proteins was obtained using detergents, but their amount represented less than 3% in mass of the total protein extract, based on protein quantification. CONCLUSION: The new cell wall preparation described in this paper gives the lowest proportion of proteins predicted to be intracellular when compared to available protocols. The application of its principles should lead to a more realistic view of the cell wall proteome, at least for the weakly bound CWP extractable by salts. In addition, it offers a clean cell wall preparation for subsequent extraction of strongly bound CWP.

Cell wall proteins: a new insight through proteomics.

Cell wall proteins are essential constituents of plant cell walls; they are involved in modifications of cell wall components, wall structure, signaling and interactions with plasma membrane proteins at the cell surface. The application of proteomic approaches to the cell wall compartment raises important questions: are there technical problems specific to cell wall proteomics? What kinds of proteins can be found in Arabidopsis walls? Are some of them unexpected? What sort of post-translational modifications have been characterized in cell wall proteins to date? The purpose of this review is to discuss the experimental results obtained to date using proteomics, as well as some of the new questions challenging future research.

Lectin receptor kinases participate in protein-protein interactions to mediate plasma membrane-cell wall adhesions in Arabidopsis.

Interactions between plant cell walls and plasma membranes are essential for cells to function properly, but the molecules that mediate the structural continuity between wall and membrane are unknown. Some of these interactions, which are visualized upon tissue plasmolysis in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), are disrupted by the RGD (arginine-glycine-aspartic acid) tripeptide sequence, a characteristic cell adhesion motif in mammals. In planta induced-O (IPI-O) is an RGD-containing protein from the plant pathogen Phytophthora infestans that can disrupt cell wall-plasma membrane adhesions through its RGD motif. To identify peptide sequences that specifically bind the RGD motif of the IPI-O protein and potentially play a role in receptor recognition, we screened a heptamer peptide library displayed in a filamentous phage and selected two peptides acting as inhibitors of the plasma membrane RGD-binding activity of Arabidopsis. Moreover, the two peptides also disrupted cell wall-plasma membrane adhesions. Sequence comparison of the RGD-binding peptides with the Arabidopsis proteome revealed 12 proteins containing amino acid sequences in their extracellular domains common with the two RGD-binding peptides. Eight belong to the receptor-like kinase family, four of which have a lectin-like extracellular domain. The lectin domain of one of these, At5g60300, recognized the RGD motif both in peptides and proteins. These results imply that lectin receptor kinases are involved in protein-protein interactions with RGD-containing proteins as potential ligands, and play a structural and signaling role at the plant cell surfaces.

Relationship between allelic state of T-DNA and DNA methylation of chromosomal integration region in transformed Arabidopsis thaliana plants.

T-DNA insertions are currently used as a tool to introduce, or knock out, specific genes. The expression of the inserted gene is frequently haphazard and up to now, it was proposed that transgene expression depends on the site of insertion within the genome, as well as the number of copies of the transgene. In this paper, we show that the allelic state of a T-DNA insertion can be at the origin of epigenetic silencing. A T-DNA insertional mutant was characterized to explore the function of AtBP80a', a vacuolar sorting receptor previously associated with germination. Seeds homozygous for the T-DNA do not germinate, but this can be overcome by a cold treatment and maintained by the following generations. The non-germinating phenotype is only observed in homozygous seed produced by heterozygous plants indicating that it is correlated with the allelic state of the T-DNA in parental lines. Analysis of the region between the T-DNA insertion and the ATG codon of atbp80a' showed that cytosine methylation is highly enhanced in chromatin containing the T-DNA. Data presented here show that an unpaired DNA region during meiosis could be at the origin of a de novo cytosine methylation mechanism.

Proteomic analysis of secreted proteins from Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings: improved recovery following removal of phenolic compounds.

Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings grown in liquid culture were used to recover proteins secreted from the whole plant. The aim was to identify apoplastic proteins that may be lost during classical extraction procedures such as preparation of cell walls. The inclusion of polyvinyl-polypyrrolidone (PVPP) in the protocol of purification of secreted proteins allowed a more efficient identification of proteins after their separation by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) and mass spectrometry analyses. Improvement of identification was 4-fold. It is related to an increased number of detectable peaks on mass spectra increasing the percentage of sequence coverage, and the identification confidence. The role of PVPP was to trap phenolic compounds and to prevent their unspecific interactions with proteins. These experiments resulted in the identification of 44 secreted proteins, of which 70% were not identified in previous cell wall proteomic studies. This may be due to specific gene regulation in seedlings and/or to a better access to apoplastic proteins not bound to cell walls.

Cell wall proteins in apoplastic fluids of Arabidopsis thaliana rosettes: identification by mass spectrometry and bioinformatics.

Weakly bound cell wall proteins of Arabidopsis thaliana were identified using a proteomic and bioinformatic approach. An efficient protocol of extraction based on vacuum-infiltration of the tissues was developed. Several salts and a chelating agent were compared for their ability to extract cell wall proteins without releasing cytoplasmic contaminants. Of the 93 proteins that were identified, a large proportion (60%) was released by calcium chloride. From bioinformatics analysis, it may be predicted that most of them (87 out of 93) had a signal peptide, whereas only six originated from the cytoplasm. Among the putative apoplastic proteins, a high proportion (67 out of 87) had a basic pI. Numerous glycoside hydrolases and proteins with interacting domains were identified, in agreement with the expected role of the extracellular matrix in polysaccharide metabolism and recognition phenomena. Ten proteinases were also found as well as six proteins with unknown functions. Comparison of the cell wall proteome of rosettes with the previously published cell wall proteome of cell suspension cultures showed a high level of cell specificity, especially for the different members of several large multigenic families.

Gene silencing using a heat-inducible RNAi system in Arabidopsis.

Controlling gene expression during plant development is an efficient tool to explore gene function. In this paper, we describe a gene expression system driven by a heat-shock gene promoter (HSP18.2), to trigger the expression of an intron-containing inverted-repeat. RNA interference became a powerful way for gene functional analysis by reverse genetic approaches. However, constitutive gene silencing cannot be used with genes involved in fundamental processes such as embryo viability. Inducible promoters provide an alternative approach for temporal and spatial gene expression control and we described here a new system, complementary to those using chemical gene inducers. To evaluate the efficiency of this system, RNA corresponding to the phytoene desaturase gene of Arabidopsis thaliana was used as a reporter gene in transgenic plants and a comparative study was performed using either the CaMV35S constitutive promoter or the HSP18.2 inducible promoter.

Proteomics of loosely bound cell wall proteins of Arabidopsis thaliana cell suspension cultures: a critical analysis.

The complete sequencing of the Arabidopsis thaliana genome allows the use of the recently developed mass spectrometry techniques to identify the cell wall proteins (CWPs). Most proteomic approaches depend on the quality of sample preparation. Extraction of CWPs is particularly complex since the proteins may be free in the apoplast or are embedded in a polysaccharide matrix where they are retained by Van der Waals interactions, hydrogen bonds, hydrophobic or ionic interactions, or cross-linked by covalent bonds. Specific and sequential extraction procedures thus need to be developed. We report on the sequential extraction of loosely bound CWPs from living A. thaliana cells in culture. Different salts and chelating agents were used for releasing the proteins from the wall. Their effects on the extraction of CWPs and on the integrity of the plasma membrane were evaluated. Bioinformatic software was used to identify proteins and to predict their sub-cellular localization. The obtained data show that the plasma membrane of cells in culture was easily damaged by some steps of the extraction procedure, leading to the release of increasing amounts of intracellular proteins. Nevertheless, we identified fifty CWPs among which thirteen were new proteins for the cell wall. In addition, 76% of these CWPs were basic proteins not resolved in two-dimensional (2-D) gel electrophoresis. The existence of two hypothetical proteins was confirmed. The structure of three proteins could be confirmed using mass spectrometry data.

Seed germination is blocked in Arabidopsis putative vacuolar sorting receptor (atbp80) antisense transformants.

The membrane receptor protein from pea, peabp80, has been shown to function by in vitro binding studies, and in vivo in yeast mutant, as a vacuolar sorting receptor (VSR). Families of proteins with homology to peabp80 have been identified in many plants including Arabidopsis: The family of membrane receptors, atbp80a-f (Arabidopsis thaliana binding protein 80 kDa) is highly homologous to peabp80 and may also function as vacuolar sorting receptors. Interactions with vacuolar sorting determinants have been shown only in vitro for atbp80b. In this paper, atbp80b was over- and under-expressed in Arabidopsis. Transgenic plants that over-expressed atbp80b showed no visible phenotype. However, antisense transformants were defective in germination. In non-germinating antisense transformants the embryo appeared to be normal, but, using several methods, it was not possible to rescue the non-germinating seeds, indicating that the mechanisms were probably independent of a seed-coat-imposed inhibition. To make a correlation between the lack of germination and gene expression, transcription analysis of all atbp80 genes was performed in the non-germinating antisense seeds indicating that all the normally transcribed genes were not detected. Then, a gene expression study of atbp80s genes was carried-out following seed imbibition and in various organs during wild-type plant development showing that all the genes from the family were transcribed and differentially expressed.