TY - JOUR

T1 - The legacy of terrestrial plant evolution on cell wall fine structure

AU - Fangel, Jonatan U.

AU - Sørensen, Klavs Martin

AU - Jacobsen, Niels

AU - Mravec, Jozef

AU - Ahl, Louise Isager

AU - Bakshani, Cassie

AU - Mikkelsen, Maria Dalgaard

AU - Engelsen, Søren Balling

AU - Willats, William

AU - Ulvskov, Peter

N1 - Publisher Copyright: Plant, Cell & Environment© 2023 The Authors. Plant, Cell & Environment published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

PY - 2024

Y1 - 2024

N2 - The evolution of land flora was an epochal event in the history of planet Earth. The success of plants, and especially flowering plants, in colonizing all but the most hostile environments required multiple mechanisms of adaptation. The mainly polysaccharide-based cell walls of flowering plants, which are indispensable for water transport and structural support, are one of the most important adaptations to life on land. Thus, development of vasculature is regarded as a seminal event in cell wall evolution, but the impact of further refinements and diversification of cell wall compositions and architectures on radiation of flowering plant families is less well understood. We approached this from a glyco-profiling perspective and, using carbohydrate microarrays and monoclonal antibodies, studied the cell walls of 287 plant species selected to represent important evolutionary dichotomies and adaptation to a variety of habitats. The results support the conclusion that radiation of flowering plant families was indeed accompanied by changes in cell wall fine structure and that these changes can obscure earlier evolutionary events. Convergent cell wall adaptations identified by our analyses do not appear to be associated with plants with similar lifestyles but that are taxonomically distantly related. We conclude that cell wall structure is linked to phylogeny more strongly than to habitat or lifestyle and propose that there are many approaches of adaptation to any given ecological niche.

AB - The evolution of land flora was an epochal event in the history of planet Earth. The success of plants, and especially flowering plants, in colonizing all but the most hostile environments required multiple mechanisms of adaptation. The mainly polysaccharide-based cell walls of flowering plants, which are indispensable for water transport and structural support, are one of the most important adaptations to life on land. Thus, development of vasculature is regarded as a seminal event in cell wall evolution, but the impact of further refinements and diversification of cell wall compositions and architectures on radiation of flowering plant families is less well understood. We approached this from a glyco-profiling perspective and, using carbohydrate microarrays and monoclonal antibodies, studied the cell walls of 287 plant species selected to represent important evolutionary dichotomies and adaptation to a variety of habitats. The results support the conclusion that radiation of flowering plant families was indeed accompanied by changes in cell wall fine structure and that these changes can obscure earlier evolutionary events. Convergent cell wall adaptations identified by our analyses do not appear to be associated with plants with similar lifestyles but that are taxonomically distantly related. We conclude that cell wall structure is linked to phylogeny more strongly than to habitat or lifestyle and propose that there are many approaches of adaptation to any given ecological niche.

KW - adaptation

KW - CoMPP

KW - glyco-arrays

KW - plant cell wall fine structure

KW - plant cell wall polysaccharides

KW - plant cell wall types

U2 - 10.1111/pce.14785

DO - 10.1111/pce.14785

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 38173082

AN - SCOPUS:85181242296

VL - 47

SP - 1238

EP - 1254

JO - Plant, Cell and Environment

JF - Plant, Cell and Environment

SN - 0140-7791

IS - 4

ER -