A GDSL-motif Esterase/Lipase Affects Wax and Cutin Deposition and Controls Hull-Caryopsis Attachment in Barley.

The cuticle covering aerial organs of land plants is well known to protect against desiccation. Cuticles also play diverse and specialized functions, including organ separation, depending on plant and tissue. Barley shows a distinctive cuticular wax bloom enriched in β-diketones on leaf sheaths, stem nodes and internodes and inflorescences.

Conserved signalling components coordinate epidermal patterning and cuticle deposition in barley.

Faced with terrestrial threats, land plants seal their aerial surfaces with a lipid-rich cuticle. To breathe, plants interrupt their cuticles with adjustable epidermal pores, called stomata, that regulate gas exchange, and develop other specialised epidermal cells such as defensive hairs. Mechanisms coordinating epidermal features remain poorly understood.

APETALA2 functions as a temporal factor together with BLADE-ON-PETIOLE2 and MADS29 to control flower and grain development in barley.

Cereal grain develops from fertilised florets. Alterations in floret and grain development greatly influence grain yield and quality. Despite this, little is known about the underlying genetic control of these processes, especially in key temperate cereals such as barley and wheat.