Cellulose synthase in its native environment – CESANE

Plants provide us with the air we breathe, the food we eat and much of the materials we use in our daily life. Central to these aspects is a massive protein complex, built by cellulose synthase subunits, which produce cellulose. This protein complex critically supports plant biology as it produces the loadbearing structure for plant stature and thus provides the foundation of plant morphology. However, despite its key role in plant biology and our society, we have little knowledge about how this enzyme complex works. This knowledge gap is largely due to the difficulties to visualize the complex to adequately high resolution in its native environment. We aim to mend this gap by exploiting the novel emerging technique of cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) that enables in vivo imaging of cellulose synthesis at the molecular level in plants. Our results aim to resolve a longstanding question in plant biology; how the skeleton of plants is produced, and offers inroads to manipulate plant growth and biomass for future societal impacts.