Ancient liverwort separates fungal partnerships from root-hair growth
Lam AHC, Cooke A, Richardson J, Charpentier M
Mycorrhizal Networks
The mycorrhizal fungi feeding roughly 80% of land plants, including your tomatoes and perennials, rely on a calcium-signaling system so ancient that even a humble liverwort still runs on it, and this study shows exactly which molecular parts are doing the work.
Marchantia paleacea is a liverwort, a simple plant related to some of the very first plants that ever colonized land. Researchers found three calcium-channel proteins that let it sense and welcome partnerships with mycorrhizal fungi, tiny underground fungi that trade nutrients for sugar with most plants on Earth. Surprisingly, the fungi could still get inside the liverwort's cells even when its root-hair-like growths weren't extending, showing that fungal partnership and root-hair growth are controlled separately even though both help the plant find nutrients.
Key Findings
Three MpaCNGC calcium-channel genes across two ancient gene superclades are jointly required for nuclear calcium oscillations that enable arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal colonisation in Marchantia paleacea.
CNGCs diversified into three ancient superclades before plants moved onto land, predating the split between bryophytes and flowering plants.
AM fungi still activate calcium signaling and enter cells lacking rhizoid growth, showing that tip-growing rhizoids are not strictly required for fungal entry in this species.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists studying a simple liverwort found the calcium-signaling channels that let it team up with beneficial soil fungi are separate from the channels that grow its root-like threads, showing these two survival tools evolved independently even though they work together in the wild.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
CNGCs in Marchantia paleacea uncouple arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis and rhizoid development.
In Marchantia paleacea, MpaDMI1-dependent nuclear Ca2+ oscillations are essential for arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal colonisation, indicating that endosymbiosis-mediated nuclear Ca2+ signalling...
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Marchantia paleacea is a species of liverwort found in North America, Europe, and eastern Asia. It has been employed as a model organism to study plant-fungal symbioses.