Metabolic and signalling processes in plant cell wall integrity maintenance.

BACKGROUND: Our understanding of plant cell walls has profoundly changed in recent decades. Originally seen as sturdy recalcitrant structures supporting plant growth, development, and interactions with the environment, we now appreciate the dynamic processes and plasticity modulating cell wall homeostasis, enabling cell walls to perform their respective biological functions in a highly adaptive manner. A key component underlying plasticity and responsible for adaptive changes is the plant cell wall integrity maintenance mechanism. It is responsible for monitoring and maintaining the functional integrity of cell walls by initiating adaptive changes in cell wall composition and structure in response to stimuli arising during growth, development and interactions with the environment.

SCOPE: Here we provide an overview of our current knowledge of the processes important for plant cell wall structure and homeostasis in the context of cell wall integrity maintenance, summarizing the main components of the cell wall, the cell surface receptors responsible for monitoring the integrity of cell walls, and the mode of action of the cell wall integrity maintenance mechanism for preserving cell wall functions during physiological processes and stress responses.

CONCLUSIONS: This overview shows how the cell wall integrity maintenance mechanism ensures the functional integrity of the cell wall and how this is maintained through integration of different stimuli driving tightly controlled, adaptive changes in cell wall homeostasis by involving different receptors and signalling cascades.