Mitochondrial beta-cyanoalanine synthase is essential for root hair formation in Arabidopsis thaliana

Cyanide is stoichiometrically produced as a co-product of the ethylene biosynthesis pathway, and it is detoxified by the b-cyanoalanine synthase enzyme. The molecular and phenotypical analysis of T-DNA insertional mutants of the mitochondrial b-cyanoalanine synthase CYS-C1 suggests that discrete accumulation of cyanide is not toxic for the plant and does not alter mitochondrial respiration rates, but does act as a strong inhibitor of root hair development. The cys-c1 null allele is defective in root hair formation and accumulates cyanide in root tissues. The root hair defect is phenocopied in wild type plants by the exogenous addition of cyanide to the growth medium and is reversed by the addition of hydroxocobalamin. Hydroxocobalamin not only recovers the root phenotype of the mutant, but also the formation of ROS at the initial step of the root hair tip. Transcriptional profile analysis of the cys-c1 mutant reveals that cyanide accumulation acts as a repressor signal for several genes encoding enzymes involved in cell wall rebuilding and the formation of the root hair tip, as well as genes involved in ethylene signaling and metabolism. Our results demonstrate that mitochondrial b-cyanoalanine synthase activity is essential to maintain a low level of cyanide for proper root hair development. Using Affymetrix ATH1 GeneChips, we performed a comparative transcriptomic analysis of the cys-c1 and wild type plants. Total RNA was extracted from of roots or leaves of 14-days-old plants grown under identical conditions on MS medium (three biological replicates for each genotype), and these samples were used to prepare complementary RNA and and analyzed using the Affymetrix-Arabidopsis ATH1GeneChip array.