THE ARABIDOPSIS PHOSPHATIDYLINOSITOL-PHOSPHOLIPASE C2 (ATPLC2) IS INVOLVED IN FEMALE GAMETOPHYTE AND EMBRYO DEVELOPMENT

DI FINO L; D'AMBROSIO JM; PAGNUSSAT, G.; LAXALT, AM.

Galveston

Congreso; Gordon Research Conferences Plant Lipids; 2015

In plants, the phosphatidylinositol-phospholipases C (PI-PLCs) have a role in signal transduction during development and biotic and abiotic stress. The Arabidopsis PI-PLC gene family is composed of 9 members, named AtPLC1 to AtPLC9. In particular, AtPLC2 is constitutively and ubiquitously expressed. AtPLC2 is phosphorylated in vivo upon flagellin and sucrose treatments, suggesting has a role in primary responses to stress. The aim of this study was to assess the role of AtPLC2 in Arabidopsis plants using knock out mutants. For that we worked with two Arabidopsis T-DNA insertions lines plc2-1 (WS ecotype) and plc2-2 (Col-0 ecotype). Our results showed that PLC2 knock out mutants were lethal, since no homozygous plants were recovered in the offspring from either plc2-1/PLC2 or plc2-2/PLC2 self-pollinated plants. plc2-1/PLC2 plants showed a 50% reduced seed set and female gametophyte arrested at early stages (within the first mitosis). Backcrosses experiments showed that plc2-1 affects female gametophyte and not the male gametophyte. Surprisingly, allelic mutant plants (plc2-1/PLC2) presented normal gametophyte development. However they showed: 25% reduced seed set, abnormal patterns of cell division at early stages of embryo development and embryos arrested at the pre-globular stage. Altogether these results suggest that AtPLC2 has a role in mitosis and/or the formation of cell division planes. Supported by CONICET, ANPCyT and UNMdP.