Functional analysis of CDKA;1, the Arabidopsis thaliana homologue of the p34cdc2 protein kinase

CYCLIN-DEPENDENT KINASEs (CDKs) are the central gatekeepers of cell cycle progression and conserved in all eukaryotes. In this study, the Arabidopsis thaliana master cell cycle regulator CDKA;1 was functionally analyzed. CDKA;1 is a single gene in Arabidopsis and homologous to the human Cdk1 and the yeast cdc2/CDC28. Screening of two T-DNA insertion mutant collections resulted in the isolation of two independent cdka;1 null mutant alleles, which displayed the same phenotype. CDKA;1 was found to be required for both the sporophytic and the male gametophytic generations of the flowering plant Arabidopsis. While during sporophyte development, heterozygous mutant plants were unaffected, homozygous cdka;1 mutants were not viable and died as young embryos. During male gametophyte (pollen) development, the lack of CDKA;1 function caused a cell cycle arrest in the G2 phase prior to the last mitotic division. This cell cycle defect led to cdka;1 mutant pollen with only one instead of the usual two sperm cells. Nevertheless, the mutant cdka;1 pollen was viable and could fertilize the female gametophyte (embryo sac). Because cdka;1 pollen grains had only one instead of two sperm cells, they only performed single fertilization and thus, disrupted the double fertilization event characteristic of flowering plants. Interestingly, the cdka;1 mutant single fertilization exclusively targeted the egg cell, leaving the progenitor of the endosperm, the central cell, unfertilized. However, upon cdka;1 fertilization of the egg cell, not only the embryo started to develop, but the unfertilized central cell nucleus also began to divide. This onset of endosperm development without fertilization revealed a hitherto unrecognized endosperm proliferation signal emitted from the fertilization of the egg cell. The autonomous endosperm in cdka;1-fertilized seeds only underwent up to five nuclear division cycles before it stopped proliferating, followed by an early abortion of the whole seed. Thus, the cdka;1 mutant belongs to a rare class of paternal effect mutants that cause seed abortion irrespective of the genetic constitution of the female partner. In order to enhance endosperm proliferation in cdka;1-fertilized seeds, cdka;1 pollen was crossed to various fis-class mutants. These mutants are defective in the maternally inherited FIS-complex, a Polycomb-group repressive complex controlling genomic imprinting in the endosperm. In fis-class mutants, autonomous endosperm develops in the absence of fertilization. When fertilized, the fis-class mutant endosperm over-proliferates and due to a maternal effect these seeds abort later during development. The endosperm development in cdka;1-fertilized fis-mutant seeds was substantially enhanced and led to a partial rescue of the cdka;1-mediated seed abortion. Unexpectedly, the maternally conferred seed abortion caused by fis-class mutants was also partially reversed, producing viable seeds among the fis-class x cdka;1 offspring. This rescue was characterized by a down-regulated expression of the MADS-box transcription factor PHERES1, a downstream target of FIS-complex repression which is highly over-expressed in fertilized fis-class mutants. The down-regulation of PHERES1 in fis-class x cdka;1 endosperm suggests that the lack of paternal expression in combination with the defective gene repression of fis-class mutants results in a more balanced gene dosage of PHERES1 and potentially other genes of which the dosage is pivotal for regular seed development. These results indicate that the FIS-complex is not essential for endosperm development, but is important to harmonize maternal and paternal gene expression by the control of imprinting in the female genome. Furthermore, these data demonstrate that the paternal genome is not required for functional endosperm development if maternally derived genomic imprinting is bypassed due to mutations in the FIS-complex. The finding that a solely maternally derived endosperm can sustain seed development supports a hypothesis raised by Eduard Strasburger, who proposed in 1900 that the endosperm of flowering plants is of female gametophytic origin and that central cell fertilization might have evolved as a trigger to start endosperm proliferation

Dying two deaths - programmed cell death regulation in development and disease

Programmed cell death (PCD) is a fundamental cellular process that has adopted a plethora of vital functions in multicellular organisms. In plants, PCD processes are elicited as an inherent part of regular development in specific cell types or tissues, but can also be triggered by biotic and abiotic stresses. Although over the last years we have seen progress in our understanding of the molecular regulation of different plant PCD processes, it is still unclear whether a common core machinery exists that controls cell death in development and disease. In this review, we discuss recent advances in the field, comparing some aspects of the molecular regulation controlling developmental and pathogen-triggered PCD in plants

Convergent evolution of water conducting cells in Marchantia recruited the ZHOUPI gene promoting cell wall reinforcement and programmed cell death

A key adaptation of plants to life on land is the formation of water conducting cells (WCC) for efficient long-distance water transport. Based on morphological analyses it is thought that WCC have evolved independently on multiple occasions. For example, WCC have been lost in all but a few lineages of bryophytes but strikingly, within the liverworts a derived group, the complex thalloids, has evolved a novel externalised water conducting tissue composed of reinforced, hollow cells termed pegged rhizoids. Here we show that pegged rhizoid differentiation in Marchantia polymorpha is controlled by orthologues of the ZHOUPI and ICE bHLH transcription factors required for endosperm cell death in Arabidopsis seeds. By contrast, pegged rhizoid development was not affected by disruption of MpNAC5, the Marchantia orthologue of the VND genes that control WCC formation in flowering plants. We characterize the rapid, genetically controlled programmed cell death process that pegged rhizoids undergo to terminate cellular differentiation, and identify a corresponding upregulation of conserved putative plant cell death effector genes. Lastly, we show that ectopic expression of MpZOU1 increases production of pegged rhizoids and enhances drought tolerance. Our results support that pegged rhizoids having evolved independently of other WCC. We suggest that elements of the genetic control of developmental cell death are conserved throughout land plants and that the ZHOUPI/ICE regulatory module has been independently recruited to promote cell wall modification and programmed cell death in liverwort rhizoids and in the endosperm of flowering plant seed

The Arabidopsis thaliana F-Box Protein FBL17 Is Essential for Progression through the Second Mitosis during Pollen Development

In fungi and metazoans, the SCF-type Ubiquitin protein ligases (E3s) play a critical role in cell cycle regulation by degrading negative regulators, such as cell cycle-dependent kinase inhibitors (CKIs) at the G1-to-S-phase checkpoint. Here we report that FBL17, an Arabidopsis thaliana F-box protein, is involved in cell cycle regulation during male gametogenesis. FBL17 expression is strongly enhanced in plants co-expressing E2Fa and DPa, transcription factors that promote S-phase entry. FBL17 loss-of-function mutants fail to undergo pollen mitosis II, which generates the two sperm cells in mature A. thaliana pollen. Nonetheless, the single sperm cell-like cell in fbl17 mutants is functional but will exclusively fertilize the egg cell of the female gametophyte, giving rise to an embryo that will later abort, most likely due to the lack of functional endosperm. Seed abortion can, however, be overcome by mutations in FIE, a component of the Polycomb group complex, overall resembling loss-of-function mutations in the A. thaliana cyclin-dependent kinase CDKA;1. Finally we identified ASK11, as an SKP1-like partner protein of FBL17 and discuss a possible mechanism how SCFFBL17 may regulate cell division during male gametogenesis

Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 Controls the Embryo-to-Seedling Phase Transition

Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) is a key regulator of epigenetic states catalyzing histone H3 lysine 27 trimethylation (H3K27me3), a repressive chromatin mark. PRC2 composition is conserved from humans to plants, but the function of PRC2 during the early stage of plant life is unclear beyond the fact that it is required for the development of endosperm, a nutritive tissue that supports embryo growth. Circumventing the requirement of PRC2 in endosperm allowed us to generate viable homozygous null mutants for FERTILIZATION INDEPENDENT ENDOSPERM (FIE), which is the single Arabidopsis homolog of Extra Sex Combs, an indispensable component of Drosophila and mammalian PRC2. Here we show that H3K27me3 deposition is abolished genome-wide in fie mutants demonstrating the essential function of PRC2 in placing this mark in plants as in animals. In contrast to animals, we find that PRC2 function is not required for initial body plan formation in Arabidopsis. Rather, our results show that fie mutant seeds exhibit enhanced dormancy and germination defects, indicating a deficiency in terminating the embryonic phase. After germination, fie mutant seedlings switch to generative development that is not sustained, giving rise to neoplastic, callus-like structures. Further genome-wide studies showed that only a fraction of PRC2 targets are transcriptionally activated in fie seedlings and that this activation is accompanied in only a few cases with deposition of H3K4me3, a mark associated with gene activity and considered to act antagonistically to H3K27me3. Up-regulated PRC2 target genes were found to act at different hierarchical levels from transcriptional master regulators to a wide range of downstream targets. Collectively, our findings demonstrate that PRC2-mediated regulation represents a robust system controlling developmental phase transitions, not only from vegetative phase to flowering but also especially from embryonic phase to the seedling stage

Search for new particles in events with energetic jets and large missing transverse momentum in proton-proton collisions at root s=13 TeV

A search is presented for new particles produced at the LHC in proton-proton collisions at root s = 13 TeV, using events with energetic jets and large missing transverse momentum. The analysis is based on a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 101 fb(-1), collected in 2017-2018 with the CMS detector. Machine learning techniques are used to define separate categories for events with narrow jets from initial-state radiation and events with large-radius jets consistent with a hadronic decay of a W or Z boson. A statistical combination is made with an earlier search based on a data sample of 36 fb(-1), collected in 2016. No significant excess of events is observed with respect to the standard model background expectation determined from control samples in data. The results are interpreted in terms of limits on the branching fraction of an invisible decay of the Higgs boson, as well as constraints on simplified models of dark matter, on first-generation scalar leptoquarks decaying to quarks and neutrinos, and on models with large extra dimensions. Several of the new limits, specifically for spin-1 dark matter mediators, pseudoscalar mediators, colored mediators, and leptoquarks, are the most restrictive to date.Peer reviewe

Combined searches for the production of supersymmetric top quark partners in proton-proton collisions at root s=13 TeV

A combination of searches for top squark pair production using proton-proton collision data at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV at the CERN LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 137 fb(-1) collected by the CMS experiment, is presented. Signatures with at least 2 jets and large missing transverse momentum are categorized into events with 0, 1, or 2 leptons. New results for regions of parameter space where the kinematical properties of top squark pair production and top quark pair production are very similar are presented. Depending on themodel, the combined result excludes a top squarkmass up to 1325 GeV for amassless neutralino, and a neutralinomass up to 700 GeV for a top squarkmass of 1150 GeV. Top squarks with masses from 145 to 295 GeV, for neutralino masses from 0 to 100 GeV, with a mass difference between the top squark and the neutralino in a window of 30 GeV around the mass of the top quark, are excluded for the first time with CMS data. The results of theses searches are also interpreted in an alternative signal model of dark matter production via a spin-0 mediator in association with a top quark pair. Upper limits are set on the cross section for mediator particle masses of up to 420 GeV

Observation of tW production in the single-lepton channel in pp collisions at root s=13 TeV

A measurement of the cross section of the associated production of a single top quark and a W boson in final states with a muon or electron and jets in proton-proton collisions at root s = 13 TeV is presented. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 36 fb(-1) collected with the CMS detector at the CERN LHC in 2016. A boosted decision tree is used to separate the tW signal from the dominant t (t) over bar background, whilst the subleading W+jets and multijet backgrounds are constrained using data-based estimates. This result is the first observation of the tW process in final states containing a muon or electron and jets, with a significance exceeding 5 standard deviations. The cross section is determined to be 89 +/- 4 (stat) +/- 12 (syst) pb, consistent with the standard model.Peer reviewe

Probing effective field theory operators in the associated production of top quarks with a Z boson in multilepton final states at root s=13 TeV

Peer reviewe