The thickening of the walls of secondary cells is regulated by blue light.

The upright growth of higher plants depends on the mechanical support provided by the cells of the tube tissue through thickening of the cell wall and the formation of long-distance transport channels.
cell wall thickening is regulated by genetic and environmental factors, which cause plants that grow under different types and environmental conditions to form secondary cell walls of different thicknesses, compositions and structures.
secondary cell wall thickening has an important effect on plant growth and development, crop characteristic formation (e.g. anti-inverted characteristics), cell wall properties and cell wall resource utilization (e.g. wood wood, fiber biomass conversion and utilization).
But at present, little is known about how cell wall thickening is regulated by environmental factors, and how its molecular mechanism is. On September 21,
, the international academic journal The Plant Cell published an online study by the Chinese Academy of Sciences's Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences/Plant Physiological Ecology Group entitled Blue Light Regulates Secondary Cell Wall Ing via MYC2/MYC4 activation of the NST1-directededional network in Arabidopsis, which found that secondary cell wall thickening is regulated by blue light.
through the study of the amoeba cry1 mutant stalks, there are defects in the thickening of the fibrous cell walls in the flower-order shaft stalks, the cell wall is thin, the mechanical strength of the stalks is reduced, and the overexpression of CRY1 promotes secondary cell wall synthesis, thickening of the cell wall, and the mechanical strength of the stem increases.
analysis showed that in the CRY1 mutants, the transcription control network with the secondary wall thickened could not start properly.
the analysis of the transcription control network found that the NST1-dominated secondary wall thickening transcription program is induced by blue light, and MYC2/MYC4 can be directly combined with the NST1 promoter and activate its expression.
experiments have shown that by responding to blue light signals, MYC2/MYC4 activates the secondary wall synthesis program and promotes the thickening of the secondary cell walls in the stem stem fiber cells of the flower sequence.
the first study to find evidence of the thickening of the walls of photo-regulating secondary cells and parse their molecular mechanisms. the results of
provide an important basis for the use of light to regulate cell wall formation and the development of new technologies to guide agricultural production. Zhang Wei, a doctoral student at
, is the first author of the thesis, and the experimental research is coordinated by Liu Hongtao and Yang Hongquan.
the study was funded by the National Natural Fund Commission and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Source: Shanghai Institute of Life Sciences.