The Plant Journal (2015) 84, 1137–1151 doi: 10.1111/tpj.13071 Inhibition of fucosylation of cell wall components by 2-fluoro 2-deoxy-L-fucose induces defects in root cell elongation Marie Dumont1, Arnaud Lehner1, Muriel Bardor1, Carole Burel1, Boris Vauzeilles2,3,4, Olivier Lerouxel5, Charles T. Anderson6, Jean-Claude Mollet1 and Patrice Lerouge1,* 1Laboratoire Glycobiologie et Matrice Extracellulaire Veg etale, EA 4358, IRIB, VASI, Normandie Universite, 76821 Mont-Saint-Aignan, France, 2Institut de Chimie Moleculaire et des Materiaux d’Orsay (ICMMO) UMR CNRS 8182, Universite de Paris Sud, 91405 Orsay, France, 3Institut de Chimie des Substances Naturelles (ICSN) UPR CNRS 2301, 91198 Gif-sur-Yvette, France, 4Click4Tag, Zone Luminy Biotech, Case 922, 163 Avenue de Luminy, 13009 Marseille, France, 5Centre de Recherches sur les Macromolecules Veg etales (CERMAV) – CNRS BP 53, 38041 Grenoble Cedex 9, France, and 6Department of Biology and Center for Lignocellulose Structure and Formation, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA Received 21 September 2015; revised 26 October 2015; accepted 3 November 2015; published online 13 November 2015. *For correspondence (e-mail
[email protected]). SUMMARY Screening of commercially available fluoro monosaccharides as putative growth inhibitors in Arabidopsis thaliana revealed that 2-fluoro 2-L-fucose (2F-Fuc) reduces root growth at micromolar concentrations. The inability of 2F-Fuc to affect an Atfkgp mutant that is defective in the fucose salvage pathway indicates that 2F-Fuc must be converted to its cognate GDP nucleotide sugar in order to inhibit root growth. Chemical analysis of cell wall polysaccharides and glycoproteins demonstrated that fucosylation of xyloglucans and of N-linked glycans is fully inhibited by 10 lM 2F-Fuc in Arabidopsis seedling roots, but genetic evidence indicates that these alterations are not responsible for the inhibition of root development by 2F-Fuc.