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Updated: Jan 22, 2026

Glycan Profiling of Plant Cell Wall Polymers using Microarrays
Published on: December 17, 2012
Functional characterization of genes mediating cell wall metabolism and responses to plant cell wall integrity
Timo Engelsdorf1,2, Lars Kjaer3,4, Nora Gigli-Bisceglia1,5
1Institute for Biology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 5 Høgskoleringen, 7491, Trondheim, Norway.
Background:
Plant cell walls participate in all plant-environment interactions. Maintaining cell wall integrity (CWI) during these interactions is essential. This realization led to increased interest in CWI and resulted in knowledge regarding early perception and signalling mechanisms active during CWI maintenance. By contrast, knowledge regarding processes mediating changes in cell wall metabolism upon CWI impairment is very limited.
Results:
To identify genes involved and to investigate their contributions to the processes we selected 23 genes with altered expression in response to CWI impairment and characterized the impact of T-DNA insertions in these genes on cell wall composition using Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) in Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings. Insertions in 14 genes led to cell wall phenotypes detectable by FTIR. A detailed analysis of four genes found that their altered expression upon CWI impairment is dependent on THE1 activity, a key component of CWI maintenance. Phenotypic characterizations of insertion lines suggest that the four genes are required for particular aspects of CWI maintenance, cell wall composition or resistance to Plectosphaerella cucumerina infection in adult plants.
Conclusion:
Taken together, the results implicate the genes in responses to CWI impairment, cell wall metabolism and/or pathogen defence, thus identifying new molecular components and processes relevant for CWI maintenance.
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