Journal article

SND2, a NAC transcription factor gene, regulates genes involved in secondary cell wall development in Arabidopsis fibres and increases fibre cell area in Eucalyptus

SG Hussey, E Mizrachi, AV Spokevicius, G Bossinger, DK Berger, AA Myburg

BMC Plant Biology | Published : 2011

Abstract

Background: NAC domain transcription factors initiate secondary cell wall biosynthesis in Arabidopsis fibres and vessels by activating numerous transcriptional regulators and biosynthetic genes. NAC family member SND2 is an indirect target of a principal regulator of fibre secondary cell wall formation, SND1. A previous study showed that overexpression of SND2 produced a fibre cell-specific increase in secondary cell wall thickness in Arabidopsis stems, and that the protein was able to transactivate the cellulose synthase8 (CesA8) promoter. However, the full repertoire of genes regulated by SND2 is unknown, and the effect of its overexpression on cell wall chemistry remains unexplored.Result..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Grants

Awarded by Australian Research Council


Funding Acknowledgements

We thank James Wesley-Smith of the University of Kwazulu-Natal Electron Microscopy Unit for conducting transmission and scanning electron microscopy, Nicky Olivier of the African Centre for Gene Technologies Microarray Facility at the University of Pretoria (UP) for assistance with data analysis, and L'zanne Jansen van Rensburg (UP) for assistance with cell wall chemistry analysis. Martin Ranik (UP) cloned the coding sequence of SND2 and transformed Arabidopsis thaliana. This work was funded by Sappi and Mondi through the Forest Molecular Genetics (FMG) Programme at the University of Pretoria and further supported by funding from The Human Resources for Industry Programme (THRIP) and the National Foundation for Research (NRF) of South Africa, as well as an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Grant LP0668943 to the University of Melbourne.