Transcriptome analysis of isoxaben-induced loss of cell wall integrity in Arabidopsis nia1/2 mutant

Plant cell walls maintain their functional integrity during growth, defense and turgor generation through a dedicated cell wall integrity (CWI) maintenance mechanism. Upon detection of integrity impairment due to cell wall damage (CWD) compensatory responses are activated to maintain CWI. Responses include production of salicylic acid (SA), jasmonic acid (JA) and lignin as well as growth inhibition. Here we investigated the processes responsible for inducing growth inhibition upon CWD in Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings. Genetic studies implicated NITRATE REDUCTASE1 2 (NIA1 2) in the response to CWD. RNAseq-based transcriptomics showed that nearly all the CWD-induced transcript changes detectable in Col-0 were absent in nia1 2 seedlings. Overall design: Both genotypes (Col-0 and nia1/2) were treated with either isoxaben or DMSO (mock). Three replicates of Col-0 samples and two replicates of nia1/2 samples were analyzed.