ROLES OF A DYNAMIN-RELATED PROTEIN AND INTERACTING PROTEINS IN PLANT DEVELOPMENT

Studying how plants defend themselves against pathogens is highly important because many plants can be damaged by bacterial infections, which in turn can cause a decrease in crop production and biomass. The biomass of a plant mainly depends on the amount of organic matter produced in the leaves and the nutrients that are taken up by the root system. Vesicular trafficking is the movement of cargo proteins from one organelle to another in the form of small membrane-bound vesicles. Our lab is interested in understanding the role of vesicular trafficking proteins in plant immunity and plant growth and development. We have recently shown that the vesicular trafficking protein Dynamin-Related Protein 2B (DRP2B) acts as molecular scissors during ligand-induced endocytosis of plant immune receptor Flagellin Sensing 2 (FLS2). In addition, DRP2B functions as a regulator for immune signaling and immunity against the virulent Pseudomanas bacteria. In a large scale co-immunoprecipitation assay, we have identified several vesicular trafficking proteins interacting with DRP2B including Vesicular Trafficking Protein 3 (VES3). We aimed to determine whether DRP2B and VES3 have roles in plant growth and development. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and cleaved amplified polymorphic sequences (CAPS) analysis were used to confirm that each drp2b-2 and ves3-1 are homozygous mutants. To check whether drp2b-2 and ves3-1 single mutants have potential developmental and growth defects, roots were grown and aerial tissues of the single mutants were weighed, and compared to wild-type Col-0. The ves3 mutants were smaller in weight and had shorter roots compared to the wildtype Col-0and drp2b. In the long term, understanding how these vesicular trafficking proteins contribute to plant growth and development may help to improve biomass production.