Global cellulose biomass, horizontal gene transfers and domain fusions drive microbial expansin evolution

What is it about?

Cellulose is the most abundant biopolymer on earth. In plant cell walls, where most global cellulose biomass is found, cellulose microfibrils occur intertwined with hemicelluloses and pectins. The rigidity of this polysaccharide matrix provides plant cell walls with structural support, but this rigidity also restricts cellular growth and development. Irreversible, non-enzymatic loosening of structural carbohydrates by expansin proteins is key to successful cell wall growth in plants and green algae. Here, we find that expansin genes are distributed far more broadly throughout diverse bacterial and fungal lineages lacking cellulosic cell walls than previously known. Multiple horizontal gene transfer events are in part responsible for their unusually wide phylogenetic distribution. Together, these results suggest that in addition to being the key evolutionary innovation by which eukaryotes remodel structural cellulose in their cell walls, expansins also have remarkably broad and under-recognized utility for microbial species that interact with plant and algal structural cellulose in diverse ecological contexts.

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Photo by CDC on Unsplash

Photo by CDC on Unsplash