A research group led by Associate Professor Juntaro Nara and Professor Atsushi Range of the Graduate School of Science, Kyushu University has elucidated the function of chlorophyll in the pores, which has been a long-standing mystery of plant science.
When the plant entered the land, it created a cuticle layer to prevent water evaporation.At the same time, "pores" for taking in and evaporating CO2 were developed on the body surface.Stomata cells (stomata cells) are known to have chloroplasts, but their origin and function remain poorly understood.
This time, the research group found that the chloroplasts of guard cells are different from other photosynthetic cells by genetic analysis using a model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana.That is, the chloroplasts of guard cells degenerate the lipid metabolism pathway "prokaryotic pathway" inherited from the photosynthetic bacteria (cyanobacteria), which are the ancestors of chloroplasts, and the lipid metabolism pathway of the host eukaryotic cell " It was found that the eukaryotic pathway was mainly used to maintain the formation and function of chloroplasts.It was also clarified that when the chloroplasts of these guard cells are no longer formed, the stomatal opening / closing response by CO2 is suppressed.
The results of this study are the first to clarify that guard cell chloroplasts develop a unique lipid metabolism balance and play an important role in the CO2 sensing mechanism of plants.This achievement not only helps to unravel the significance of stomatal chloroplasts, which has been a long-standing mystery of plant science, but also helps to understand the effects of atmospheric CO2 concentrations, which have risen sharply in recent years, on crops. Is expected.
