Lipidomic Analysis Reveals the Importance of GIPCs in Arabidopsis Leaf Extracellular Vesicles

Abstract

Plant extracellular vesicles (EVs) are membrane-enclosed nanoparticles that play diverse roles in plant development and response. Recently, impressive progress has been made in the isolation and identification of the proteins and RNAs carried in plant EVs; however, the analysis of EV lipid compositions remains rudimentary. Here, we performed lipidomic analysis of Arabidopsis rosette leaf EVs, revealing a high abundance of certain groups of lipids, in particular sphingolipids, in the EVs. Remarkably, the EV sphingolipids are composed of nearly pure glycosylinositolphosphoceramides (GIPCs), which are green lineage abundant and negatively charged. We further showed that the Arabidopsis TETRASPANIN 8 (TET8) knockout mutant has a lower amount of cellular GIPCs and secrets fewer EVs, companied with impaired reactive oxygen species (ROS) burst toward stresses. Exogenous application of GIPCs promoted the secretion of EVs and ROS burst in both the WT and tet8 mutant. The characteristic enrichment of sphingolipid GIPCs provides valuable insights into the biogenesis and function of plant EVs.

Keywords: extracellular vesicles; sphingolipids.