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Title: Bottom-up multiscale modelling of guard cell walls reveals molecular mechanisms of stomatal biomechanics
Abstract Stomata are dynamic pores on plant surfaces that regulate photosynthesis and are thus of critical importance for understanding and leveraging the carbon-capturing and food-producing capabilities of plants. However, our understanding of the molecular underpinnings of stomatal kinetics and the biomechanical properties of the cell walls of stomatal guard cells that enable their dynamic responses to environmental and intrinsic stimuli is limited. Here, we built multiscale models that simulate regions of the guard cell wall, representing cellulose fibrils and matrix polysaccharides as discrete, interacting units, and used these models to help explain how molecular changes in wall composition and underlying architecture alter guard wall biomechanics that gives rise to stomatal responses in mutants with altered wall synthesis and modification. These results point to strategies for engineering guard cell walls to enhance stomatal response times and efficiency.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2015943
PAR ID:
10514994
Author(s) / Creator(s):
;
Editor(s):
Zhu, Xin-Guang
Publisher / Repository:
Oxford Academic
Date Published:
Journal Name:
in silico Plants
Volume:
5
Issue:
2
ISSN:
2517-5025
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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