Two members of the DUF579 family are responsible for arabinogalactan methylation in Arabidopsis

OpenPlant postdoc Henry Temple, in Prof Paul Dupree’s lab at the University of Cambridge, has published his discovery of a novel role for members of the DUF579 protein family in plant cell wall modification.

Temple H, Mortimer JC, Tryfona T, Yu X, Lopez‐Hernandez F, Sorieul M, Anders N, Dupree P (2019) Two members of the DUF579 family are responsible for arabinogalactan methylation in Arabidopsis. Plant Direct, https://doi.org/10.1002/pld3.117

Abstract

All members of the DUF579 family characterized so far have been described to affect the integrity of the hemicellulosic cell wall component xylan: GXMs are glucuronoxylan methyltransferases catalyzing 4‐O–methylation of glucuronic acid on xylan; IRX15 and IRX15L, although their enzymatic activity is unknown, are required for xylan biosynthesis and/or xylan deposition. Here we show that the DUF579 family members, AGM1 and AGM2, are required for 4‐O–methylation of glucuronic acid of a different plant cell wall component, the highly glycosylated arabinogalactan proteins (AGPs).