Lipid remodelling: Unravelling the response to cold stress in Arabidopsis and its extremophile relative Eutrema salsugineum

- Higher plants rapidly remodel cellular lipids in response to environmental perturbation and abiotic stress.
- Lipids in plants perform many important functions including information exchange, protection, energy storage, signalling and light capture.
- Increases in unsaturation are a common response to cold stress, but not the only mechanism of adaptation.
- An increased understanding of lipid turnover is essential to establish the contribution made by the lipidome to plant stress resilience.
- Opportunities exist to improve the resilience of crops by manipulating the lipidome.

Environmental constraints limit the geographic distribution of many economically important crops. Cold stress is an important abiotic stress that affects plant growth and development, resulting in loss of vigour and surface lesions. These symptoms are caused by, among other metabolic processes, the altered physical and chemical composition of cell membranes. As a major component of cell membranes lipids have been recognized as having a significant role in cold stress, both as a mechanical defence through leaf surface protection and plasma membrane remodelling, and as signal transduction molecules. We present an overview integrating gene expression and lipidomic data published so far in Arabidopsis and its relative the extremophile Eutrema salsugineum. This data enables a better understanding of the contribution of the lipidome in determining the ability to tolerate suboptimal temperature conditions. Collectively this information will allow us to identify the key lipids and pathways responsible for resilience, enabling the development of new approaches for crop tolerance to stress.