Plant Endoplasmic Reticulum

Jurgen Denecke, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

Published online: April 2001

DOI: 10.1038/npg.els.0001673

The plant endoplasmic reticulum is responsible for the synthesis and often storage of a large group of proteins and lipids that enter the secretory pathway. This multifunctional organelle, which also represents one of the calcium storage compartments in plant cells, has currently received considerable interest in the research community because of features unique to plants that make it particularly interesting for biotechnology.

Keywords: endoplasmic reticulum; chaperones; calcium storage; protein storage; vesicle transport; oil bodies

Figure 1. Electron micrograph showing dilated ER due to overproduction of a heterologous protein tagged with an HDEL ER retention motif. The arrowhead highlights the surface of the ER and ribosomes that are attached. The heterologous protein is detected with specific antibodies and secondary antibodies conjugated to 10 nm colloidal gold. ER = endoplasmic reticulum; V = vacuole; CW = cell wall.
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 References
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 Further Reading
    Broun P, Gettner S and Somerville C (1999) Genetic engineering of plant lipids. Annual Review of Nutrition 19: 197–216.
    Crofts AJ and Denecke J (1998) Calreticulin and calnexin in plants. Trends in Plant Science 3: 396–399.
    Galili G, Sengupta-Gopalan C and Ceriotti A (1998) The endoplasmic reticulum of plant cells and its role in protein maturation and biogenesis of oil bodies. Plant Molecular Biology 38: 1–29.
    Gilroy S and Jones RL (1993) Calmodulin stimulation of unidirectional calcium uptake by the endoplasmic reticulum of barley aleurone. Planta 190: 289–296.
    Hepler PK (1982) Endoplasmic reticulum in the formation of cell plate and plasmodesmata. Protoplasma 111: 121–133.
    Huang AHC (1996) Oleosins and oil bodies in seeds and other organs. Plant Physiology 110: 1055–1061.
    Murphy DJ (1993) Structure, function and biogenesis of storage lipid bodies and oleosins in plants. Progress in Lipid Research 32: 247–280.
    Okita TW, Li X and Roberts MW (1994) Targeting of mRNAs to domains of the endoplasmic reticulum. Trends in Cell Biology 4: 91–96.
    Shewry PR, Napier JA and Tatham AS (1995) Seed storage proteins: structures and biosynthesis. Plant Cell 7: 945–956.
    Staehelin LA (1997) The plant ER: a dynamic organelle composed of a large number of discrete functional domains. Plant Journal 11: 1151–1165.
    book Sturm A (1995) "N-Glycosylation of plant proteins". In: Montreuil J, Schachter H and Vliegenthart JFG (eds) Glycoproteins, pp. 521–541. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science.
    Vitale A and Denecke J (1999) The endoplasmic reticulum – gateway of the secretory pathway. Plant Cell 11: 615–628.

Related Sub-Topics:

General Plant Science | Cell Compartments and Cellular Organelles | Growth and Synthesis
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Article Title: Plant Endoplasmic Reticulum
 
How to Cite close
Denecke, Jurgen(Apr 2001) Plant Endoplasmic Reticulum. In: eLS. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester. http://www.els.net [doi: 10.1038/npg.els.0001673]