The preprophase band of microtubules controls the robustness of division orientation in plants

Estelle Schaefer (1, 2, 3, 4) , Katia Belcram (1, 3, 4) , Magalie Uyttewaal (1, 3, 4) , Yann Duroc (1, 2, 3, 4) , Magali Goussot (1, 3, 4) , David Legland (5) , Elise Laruelle (1, 2, 3, 4, 6) , Marie-Ludivine de Tauzia - Moreau (1, 3, 4) , Martine Pastuglia (1, 3, 4) , David Bouchez (1, 3, 4)

1 IJPB - Institut Jean-Pierre Bourgin
2 AgroParisTech
3 CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
4 Université Paris-Saclay
5 BIA - Unité de recherche sur les Biopolymères, Interactions Assemblages
6 MaIAGE - Mathématiques et Informatique Appliquées du Génome à l'Environnement [Jouy-En-Josas]

Controlling cell division plane orientation is essential for morphogenesis in multicellular organisms. In plant cells, the future cortical division plane is marked before mitotic entry by the preprophase band (PPB). Here, we characterized an Arabidopsis trm (TON1 Recruiting Motif) mutant that impairs PPB formation but does not affect interphase microtubules. Unexpectedly, PPB disruption neither abolished the capacity of root cells to define a cortical division zone nor induced aberrant cell division patterns but rather caused a loss of precision in cell division orientation. Our results advocate for a reassessment of PPB function and division plane determination in plants and show that a main output of this microtubule array is to limit spindle rotations in order to increase the robustness of cell division.

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Estelle Schaefer, Katia Belcram, Magalie Uyttewaal, Yann Duroc, Magali Goussot, et al.. The preprophase band of microtubules controls the robustness of division orientation in plants. Science, 2017, 356 (6334), pp.186-189. ⟨10.1126/science.aal3016⟩. ⟨hal-01606017⟩