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Semi-Quantitative Analysis of Peptidoglycan by Liquid Chromatography Mass Spectrometry and Bioinformatics

Semi-Quantitative Analysis of Peptidoglycan by Liquid Chromatography Mass Spectrometry and Bioinformatics

Published on: October 13, 2020

Plastid peptidoglycan.

Hiroyoshi Takano¹, Katsuaki Takechi

¹Bioelectrics Research Center, Kumamoto University, Kumamoto 860-8555, Japan. takano@kumamoto-u.ac.jp

Biochimica Et Biophysica Acta

|August 4, 2009

Summary

The moss Physcomitrella patens retains genes for peptidoglycan synthesis, challenging the idea that this layer was lost early in plant evolution. This suggests multiple independent losses of plastid peptidoglycan during plant diversification.

Area of Science:

Plant Biology
Evolutionary Biology
Cell Biology

Background:

Primary photosynthetic eukaryotes possess plastids derived from endosymbiotic cyanobacteria.
Glaucocystophytes retain peptidoglycan-armed plastids (cyanelles), suggesting its early presence.
Previous hypotheses proposed peptidoglycan loss in land plants shortly after glaucophyte divergence.

Purpose of the Study:

To review current knowledge on plastid peptidoglycan.
To propose a hypothesis for the evolutionary history of peptidoglycan in plastids.
To investigate the role of peptidoglycan biosynthesis genes in plastid function.

Main Methods:

Analysis of peptidoglycan biosynthesis genes (Mur genes) in Physcomitrella patens and Arabidopsis thaliana.
Gene knockout experiments targeting MurE in P. patens.

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Review of existing plant genome data and antibiotic treatment studies on plastid division.

Main Results:

Physcomitrella patens possesses nearly all genes for peptidoglycan biosynthesis, indicating retained capability.
Peptidoglycan synthesis pathway genes, like MurE, are linked to plastid division in P. patens.
MurE in Arabidopsis thaliana influences plastid gene expression, not division.

Conclusions:

The loss of peptidoglycan from plastids was not a single event in early plant evolution.
Evidence suggests at least three independent losses of peptidoglycan occurred during plant lineage divergence.
This includes losses from red algae, chlorophyte lineages, and during land plant evolution.