Department of Biology, University of Western Ontario London, ON, Canada ; Southern Crop Protection and Food Research Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada London, ON, Canada ; School of Life Sciences, University of Warwick Coventry, UK.
School of Life Sciences, University of Warwick Coventry, UK.
Front Plant Sci. 2013 Dec 3;4:493. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2013.00493. eCollection 2013.
During vegetative and embryonic developmental transitions, plant cells are massively reorganized to support the activities that will take place during the subsequent developmental phase. Studying cellular and subcellular changes that occur during these short transitional periods can sometimes present challenges, especially when dealing with Arabidopsis thaliana embryo and seed tissues. As a complementary approach, cellular reprogramming can be used as a tool to study these cellular changes in another, more easily accessible, tissue type. To reprogram cells, genetic manipulation of particular regulatory factors that play critical roles in establishing or repressing the seed developmental program can be used to bring about a change of cell fate. During different developmental phases, vacuoles assume different functions and morphologies to respond to the changing needs of the cell. Lytic vacuoles (LVs) and protein storage vacuoles (PSVs) are the two main vacuole types found in flowering plants such as Arabidopsis. Although both are morphologically distinct and carry out unique functions, they also share some similar activities. As the co-existence of the two vacuole types is short-lived in plant cells, how they replace each other has been a long-standing curiosity. To study the LV to PSV transition, LEAFY COTYLEDON2, a key transcriptional regulator of seed development, was overexpressed in vegetative cells to activate the seed developmental program. At the cellular level, Arabidopsis leaf LVs were observed to convert to PSV-like organelles. This presents the opportunity for further research to elucidate the mechanism of LV to PSV transitions. Overall, this example demonstrates the potential usefulness of cellular reprogramming as a method to study cellular processes that occur during developmental transitions.
在营养生长和胚胎发育的转变过程中，植物细胞会大规模重组，以支持后续发育阶段的活动。研究这些短暂过渡期间发生的细胞和亚细胞变化有时可能具有挑战性，尤其是在处理拟南芥胚胎和种子组织时。作为一种补充方法，细胞重编程可以用作研究另一种更容易获得的组织类型中这些细胞变化的工具。为了对细胞进行重编程，可以对在建立或抑制种子发育程序中发挥关键作用的特定调节因子进行遗传操作，以促使细胞命运发生改变。在不同的发育阶段，液泡会根据细胞需求的变化呈现不同的功能和形态。溶酶体（LV）和蛋白储存液泡（PSV）是在拟南芥等开花植物中发现的两种主要液泡类型。尽管它们在形态上截然不同，执行着独特的功能，但它们也具有一些相似的活动。由于两种液泡类型在植物细胞中的共存时间很短，因此它们如何相互替代一直是一个长期存在的好奇心。为了研究 LV 到 PSV 的转变，LEAFY COTYLEDON2，一种种子发育的关键转录调节因子，在营养细胞中过表达以激活种子发育程序。在细胞水平上，观察到拟南芥叶片中的 LV 转化为 PSV 样细胞器。这为进一步研究 LV 到 PSV 转变的机制提供了机会。总的来说，这个例子表明了细胞重编程作为研究发育转变过程中发生的细胞过程的一种方法的潜在有用性。
