Dynamic Apical-Basal Enrichment of the F-Actin during Cytokinesis in Arabidopsis Cells Embedded in Their Tissues

Abstract

During the life cycle of any multicellular organism, cell division contributes to the proliferation of the cell in the tissues as well as the generation of specialized cells, both necessary to form a functional organism. Therefore, the mechanisms of cell division need to be tightly regulated, as malfunctions in their control can lead to tumor formation or developmental defects. This is particularly true in land plants, where cells cannot relocate and therefore cytokinesis is key for morphogenesis. In the green lineage, cell division is executed in radically different manners than animals, with the appearance of new structures (the preprophase band (PPB), cytokinetic the cell plate and phragmoplast), and the disappearance of ancestral mechanisms (cleavage, centrosomes). While F-actin and microtubules closely co-exist to allow the orientation and the progression of the plant cell division, recent studies mainly focused on the microtubules involvement in this key process. Here, we used our recently developed root tracking system to follow actin dynamics in dividing Arabidopsis meristematic root cells. In this study, we imaged in time and space the fluorescent-tagged F-actin reporter Lifeact together with cell division markers in dividing cells embedded in their tissues. In addition to the F-actin accumulations in the phragmoplasts, we observed and quantified a dynamic apical-basal enrichment of the F-actin during cytokinesis. The role and the possible actors responsible for F-actin dynamics during cytokinesis are discussed.