Biochemical data documenting variations in mucilage polysaccharides in a range of glycosyltransferase mutants

Abstract

During Arabidopsis seed coat development, copious amounts of mucilage polysaccharides are produced in the epidermal cells. When hydrated on imbibition, these polysaccharides expand and are released to encapsulate the seed as a two-layered hydrogel. Polysaccharides are synthesized from UDP-sugars by glycosyltransferases (GTs) and several GTs, with differing activities, have been identified that contribute to mucilage polysaccharide synthesis. How these GTs orchestrate production of the complex polysaccharides found in mucilage remains to be determined. In this study, we generated a range of multiple GT mutants using either CRISPR/Cas9 targeted mutation or genetic crosses of existing T-DNA insertion mutants. Four traits for mucilage amounts or macromolecular properties were examined for four replicate seed lots from 31 different GT mutant combinations. This data provides a valuable resource for future genetic, biochemical, structural, and functional studies of the roles and properties of polysaccharides present in Arabidopsis mucilage and the relative contributions of different GTs to mucilage production.