Arabidopsis root lipid droplets are hubs for membrane homeostasis under heat stress, and triterpenoid synthesis and storage

Plant lipid droplets (LDs) and their associated proteins have numerous subcellular and physiological functions. While considerable progress has been made for LDs in many tissues, the function and composition of LDs in roots remains largely unexplored.

We investigated the changes of the number of LDs and of the lipidome in heat-stressed Arabidopsis thaliana roots. Furthermore, we isolated root LDs from the Arabidopsis mutant trigalactosyldiacylglycerol 1-1 sugar dependent 1-4 and investigated their proteome and lipidome.

Heat stress lead to a degradation of membrane lipids and an increase in TAGs and LDs. while, fatty acid SEs decreased, probably acting as precursors for acylated sterol glycosides. A variety of proteins were enriched in root LDs, which are thus far not described as LD proteins. Transient expression of these proteins in many cases confirmed their LD localization, for example of the triterpene biosynthetic enzymes thalianol synthase and marneral synthase. We could furthermore show that the educts and products of these enzymes are enriched in root LDs, too.

We conclude that root LDs simultaneously act as a sink and source during heat stress-induced membrane remodeling. Furthermore, root LDs play a pivotal role in triperpene synthesis and storage, thereby highlighting LDs as hubs in specialized metabolism.