Fujiwara Makoto

Foeniculoxin is a major phytotoxin produced by Italian strains of Phomopsis foeniculi. The first total synthesis is described utilizing the ene reaction and Sonogashira cross-coupling reaction as key steps. The absolute configuration of the C6' was determined using chiral separation and advanced Mosher's method. The phytotoxicity of the synthesized compound was demonstrated via syringe-based infiltration into Chenopodium album and Arabidopsis thaliana leaves. Synthetic foeniculoxin induced various defects in A. thaliana leaf cells before lesion formation, including protein leakage into the cytoplasm from both chloroplasts and mitochondria and mitochondrial rounding and swelling. Furthermore, foeniculoxin and the antibiotic hygromycin B caused similar agglomeration of mitochondria around chloroplasts, highlighting this event as a common component in the early stages of plant cell death.

Stromules are dynamic membrane-bound tubular structures that emanate from plastids. Stromule formation is triggered in response to various stresses and during plant development, suggesting that stromules may have physiological and developmental roles in these processes. Despite the possible biological importance of stromules and their prevalence in green plants, their exact roles and formation mechanisms remain unclear. To explore these issues, we obtained Arabidopsis thaliana mutants with excess stromule formation in the leaf epidermis by microscopy-based screening. Here, we characterized one of these mutants, stromule biogenesis altered 1 (suba1). suba1 forms plastids with severely altered morphology in a variety of non-mesophyll tissues, such as leaf epidermis, hypocotyl epidermis, floral tissues, and pollen grains, but apparently normal leaf mesophyll chloroplasts. The suba1 mutation causes impaired chloroplast pigmentation and altered chloroplast ultrastructure in stomatal guard cells, as well as the aberrant accumulation of lipid droplets and their autophagic engulfment by the vacuole. The causal defective gene in suba1 is TRIGALACTOSYLDIACYLGLYCEROL5 (TGD5), which encodes a protein putatively involved in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-to-plastid lipid trafficking required for the ER pathway of thylakoid lipid assembly. These findings suggest that a non-mesophyll-specific mechanism maintains plastid morphology. The distinct mechanisms maintaining plastid morphology in mesophyll versus non-mesophyll plastids might be attributable, at least in part, to the differential contributions of the plastidial and ER pathways of lipid metabolism between mesophyll and non-mesophyll plastids.

In Arabidopsis thaliana, the Ethylene-dependent Gravitropism-deficient and Yellow-green 1 (EGY1) gene encodes a thylakoid membrane-localized protease involved in chloroplast development in leaf mesophyll cells. Recently, EGY1 was also found to be crucial for the maintenance of grana in mesophyll chloroplasts. To further explore the function of EGY1 in leaf tissues, we examined the phenotype of chloroplasts in the leaf epidermal guard cells and pavement cells of two 40Ar17+ irradiation-derived mutants, Ar50-33-pg1 and egy1-4. Fluorescence microscopy revealed that fully expanded leaves of both egy1 mutants showed severe chlorophyll deficiency in both epidermal cell types. Guard cells in the egy1 mutant exhibited permanent defects in chloroplast formation during leaf expansion. Labeling of plastids with CaMV35S or Protodermal Factor1 (PDF1) promoter-driven stroma-targeted fluorescent proteins revealed that egy1 guard cells contained the normal number of plastids, but with moderately reduced size, compared with wild-type guard cells. Transmission electron microscopy further revealed that the development of thylakoids was impaired in the plastids of egy1 mutant guard mother cells, guard cells, and pavement cells. Collectively, these observations demonstrate that EGY1 is involved in chloroplast formation in the leaf epidermis and is particularly critical for chloroplast differentiation in guard cells.