CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

In animal systems Extracellular Vesicles (EV) are known to transport cargo molecules from the cytoplasm to the extracellular compartment and they are accepted vehicles for unconventional protein secretion. Plants have recently been shown to release EV into the apoplast and diverse experimental approaches have suggested their implication in plant-pathogen interaction. Here, we postulate a role of EV in cell wall remodeling. During plant development and growth, the size and morphology of cells must change resulting in the cleavage of cell wall components to achieve their reorganization. The cell wall is one of the distinctive features of plants but several aspects of the protein secretion required for its remodeling are still unknown, especially those depending on non-classical secretory pathways. Deepening in proteomics data we found that much of the cargo protein of EV from sunflower seedlings corresponds to cell wall-related proteins. Moreover, enzymes that participate in the degradation and reorganization of cell wall polysaccharides, such as glycoside hydrolases, appeared enriched in EV. Accumulated data point out the implication of EV in the unconventional secretion of cell wall modifying enzymes.