Evolution of the flax cell wall composition during development and after gravitropism by synchrotron fluorescence imaging

Flax (Linum usitatissimum) lodging is an issue of great interest for industrial producers due to its economic impact; despite a strong varietal selection over around one century, this plant remains sensitive to lodging which represents a main technico-economic issue. To better understand lodging effects at the cell wall and stem scale, the cell wall composition dynamics during cell wall development and after a 90 degrees tilt bending stress is reported. Deep-UltraViolet (DUV) fluorescence emission dynamics recorded at the Synchrotron SOLEIL-DISCO beamline by multichannel autofluorescence imaging is addressed for five cellular wall types of flax stems after an artificially induced gravitropic reaction. The quantitative fluorescent profile intensities were computed after image analysis, and compared to the control flax stems, we reported a systematically higher average intensity fluorescence (probability >95%) for the 90 degrees tilted plants. Moreover, the average stem fluorescence intensities were significantly different among the 3 developmental stages, with the youngest stage (VS) exhibiting on average 30% and 20% less fluorescence than the medium (FG) and mature (M) stages, respectively. The flax stem response to tilt impacted the xylem cellular type, while the bast fibres were arguably less affected by the protein, and hydroxycinnamate contents. A complementary investigation was carried out on bast fibres by infrared microspectroscopy to explore the polysaccharide components not detected in DUV fluorescence, and significant modifications were monitored.