Superoxide dismutases (SODs) catalyze the dismutation of superoxide and play an important role in reducing oxidative stress in plants. Based on in-gel SOD activity staining, chloroplasts of the moss Physcomitrella patens have two CuZn-SODs as the major SOD isozymes and minor SODs, including a Fe-SOD and two Mn-SODs. To investigate the contribution of chloroplastic SODs to stress tolerance in P....

Key developmental processes that occur on the subcellular and cellular level or occur in occluded tissues are difficult to access, let alone image and analyze. Recently, culturing living samples within polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfluidic devices has facilitated the study of hard-to-reach developmental events. Here, we show that an early diverging land plant, Physcomitrella patens, can be c...

Extant basal land plants are routinely used to trace plant evolution and to track strategies for high abiotic stress resistance. Whereas the structure of mitochondrial genomes and RNA editing are already well studied, mitochondrial proteome research is restricted to a few data sets. While the mitochondrial proteome of the model moss Physcomitrella patens is covered to an estimated 15-25% by pro...

Stomatal pores evolved more than 410 million years ago [1, 2] and allowed vascular plants to regulate transpirational water loss during the uptake of CO(2) for photosynthesis [3]. Here, we show that stomata on the sporophytes of the moss Physcomitrella patens [2] respond to environmental signals in a similar way to those of flowering plants [4] and that a homolog of a key signaling component in...

, 10 Mur genes involved in peptidoglycan biosynthesis were found, and the MurE and Pbp genes are related to plastid division. Although the MraY and MurG genes were missing in our previous expressed sequence tag screening, they were discovered in the P. patens genome in this study, indicating that P. patens has a full set of genes capable of synthesizing peptidoglycan. In addition, a second MurA...

A gene encoding a novel fifth type of major intrinsic protein (MIP) in plants has been identified in the moss Physcomitrella patens. Phylogenetic analyses show that this protein, GlpF-like intrinsic protein (GIP1;1), is closely related to a subclass of glycerol transporters in bacteria that in addition to glycerol are highly permeable to water. A likely explanation of the occurrence of this bac...

Five organisms having completely sequenced genomes and belonging to all major branches of green plants (Viridiplantae) were analyzed with respect to their content of P-type ATPases encoding genes. These were the chlorophytes Ostreococcus tauri and Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, and the streptophytes Physcomitrella patens (a non-vascular moss), Selaginella moellendorffii (a primitive vascular plant)...

Photosynthetic organisms support cell metabolism by harvesting sunlight to fuel the photosynthetic electron transport. The flow of excitation energy and electrons in the photosynthetic apparatus needs to be continuously modulated to respond to dynamics of environmental conditions, and Flavodiiron (FLV) proteins are seminal components of this regulatory machinery in cyanobacteria. FLVs were lost...

Phytochromes are plant photoreceptors important for development and adaptation to the environment. Phytochrome A (PHYA) is essential for the far-red (FR) high-irradiance responses (HIRs), which are of particular ecological relevance as they enable plants to establish under shade conditions. PHYA and HIRs have been considered unique to seed plants because the divergence of seed plants and crypto...

Tetrahydropterin-dependent aromatic amino acid hydroxylases (AAHs) are known from animals and microbes but not plants. A survey of genomes and ESTs revealed AAH-like sequences in gymnosperms, mosses, and algae. Analysis of full-length AAH cDNAs from Pinus taeda, Physcomitrella patens, and Chlamydomonas reinhardtii indicated that the encoded proteins form a distinct clade within the AAH family. ...