Physcomitrella patens: a model to investigate the role of RAC/ROP GTPase signalling in tip growth

Polarized cell expansion plays an important role in plant morphogenesis. Tip growth is a dramatic form of this process, which is widely used as a model to study its regulation by RAC/ROP GTPase signalling. During the dominant haploid phase of its life cycle, the moss Physcomitrella patens contains different types of cells that expand by tip growth. Physcomitrella is a highly attractive experimental system because its genome has been sequenced, and transgene integration by homologous recombination occurs in this plant at frequencies allowing effective gene targeting. Furthermore, together with the vascular spikemoss Selaginella moellendorffii, whose genome has also been sequenced, the non-vascular moss Physcomitrella provides an evolutionary link between green algae and angiosperms. BLAST searches established that the Physcomitrella and Selaginella genomes encode not only putative RAC/ROP GTPases, but also homologues of all known regulators of polarized RAC/ROP signalling, as well as of key effectors acting in signalling cascades downstream of RAC/ROP activity. Nucleotide sequence relationships within seven different families of Physcomitrella, Selaginella, Arabidopsis thaliana and Nicotiana tabacum (tobacco) genes with distinct functions in RAC/ROP signalling were characterized based on extensive maximum likelihood and Neighbor-Joining analyses. The results of these analyses are interpreted in the light of current knowledge concerning expression patterns and molecular functions of RAC/ROP signalling proteins in angiosperms. A key aim of this study is to facilitate the use of Physcomitrella as a model to investigate the molecular control of tip growth in plants.