The moss Physcomitrella patens: methods and tools from cultivation to targeted analysis of gene function

Abstract

To comprehensively understand the major processes in plant biology, it is necessary to study a diverse set of species that represent the complexity of plants. This research will help to comprehend common conserved mechanisms and principles, as well as to elucidate those mechanisms that are specific to a particular plant clade. Thereby, we will gain knowledge about the invention and loss of mechanisms and their biological impact causing the distinct specifications throughout the plant kingdom. Since the establishment of transgenic plants, these studies concentrate on the elucidation of gene functions applying an increasing repertoire of molecular techniques. In the last two decades, the moss Physcomitrella patens joined the established set of plant models based on its evolutionary position bridging unicellular algae and vascular plants and a number of specific features alleviating gene function analysis. Here, we want to provide an overview of the specific features of P. patens making it an interesting model for many research fields in plant biology, to present the major achievements in P. patens genetic engineering, and to introduce common techniques to scientists who intend to use P. patens as a model in their research activities.

Can mosses serve as model organisms for forest research?

“…1c), possess a three-faced apical meristematic cell which supports the formation of leafy shoots (Aoyama et al 2012;Harrison et al 2009). The role and response of hormones during the different developmental stages and possible culture conditions are well characterized and reviewed elsewhere (Bonhomme et al 2013;Decker et al 2006;Kofuji and Hasebe 2014;Strotbek et al 2013). For research, moss tissue can easily be cultivated either on agar plates where gametophores are formed within few weeks or as protonema in liquid medium.…”

“…patens is amenable to several transformation techniques to generate transient or stable transgenic plants, with polyethylene glycol mediated protoplast transformation being the most commonly used (Cove et al 2009;Strotbek et al 2013). RNAi-based procedures and inducible expression systems are established and available (reviewed in Strotbek et al 2013).…”

“…patens is amenable to several transformation techniques to generate transient or stable transgenic plants, with polyethylene glycol mediated protoplast transformation being the most commonly used (Cove et al 2009;Strotbek et al 2013). RNAi-based procedures and inducible expression systems are established and available (reviewed in Strotbek et al 2013). However, one of the original reasons to choose P. patens as a model organism was its exceptionally high rate of homologous recombination enabling gene targeting strategies as a tool for reverse genetics (Reski 1998).…”

Marchantia polymorpha L.: An Emerging Model Plant System to Study Contemporary Plant Biology – A Review

“…The single knockout of one of the redundant genes will not cause significant change in phenotype. So, multiple knockout mutants need to be generated to shut down redundancy, which is a time consuming process (Strotbek et al, 2013). So, to overcome the limitations offered by knockout strategies, the mechanism of RNAi is used to knock down the gene of interest.…”

Bryophytes and heavy metals: a review

“…Additionally, the relative simplicity of these plants (Markert andWeckert 1989, Reski 1998) makes them an important model for the investigation of morphological and genomic alterations in plants due to heavy metal toxicity (Carginale et al 2004, Choudhury andPanda 2005). Finally, the key phylogenetic position of bryophytes in plant evolution, connecting the terrestrial and aquatic mode of life (Shaw and Renzaglia 2004, Shaw et al 2011, Strotbek et al 2013, and the fact that they are the most conservative group of land plants (Reski 1998), emphasize their importance for the studies of the evolution of plant resistance mechanisms to this type of environmental pollution.…”