When cells lose water, the plasma membrane pulls away from the cell wall except at attachment points first described more than a century ago as Hechtian strands. Yue Rui and colleagues identified the molecular basis of these attachments: cellulose synthase complexes establish them, while remorin proteins limit their number. Plants with more attachment points recover better from osmotic stress, revealing a tunable structural mechanism of drought resilience. The work was done with Peter Dahlberg and collaborators at Carnegie, Aarhus, Rutgers, Freiburg and UNC.
Coverage: Stanford Report | Phys.org
Rui Y, Zaoralova M, Dwyer W, Reyes AV, Grismer TS, Abel NB, Jayachandran D, Chundawat SPS, Ott T, Kieber JJ, Dahlberg PD, Xu S-L, Dinneny JR (2026) Plant cell wall-plasma membrane attachments mediate stress resilience through cellulose synthase complexes and remorins. Cell. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2026.05.009 | free access link
Dinneny lab 