Exploring plant evolution through conformational cell wall glycomics

The earliest complex land plants appeared around 475 million years ago and have since evolved into roughly 390.900 species. From the fossil record, we know that some plant lineages have survived both drastic climatic changes and mass extinctions, but we do not know precisely which cellular micro-morphological traits and features that have given these early branching lineages an advantage over now extinct species. I propose the development of a deep-time paleo-glycomics approach to explore the evolution of plant cell wall resilience and plasticity. Comprehensive cellular analyses will be made on living species from early branching lineages before and after exposure to environmental stressors. Data will be matched with the fossil record to identify unique micromorphological structures in the cell walls using state-of-the-art artificial intelligence-based image software before coupling it to the genetic drivers needed to withstand climate change.