Cell-type specific autophagy in root hair forming cells is essential for salt stress tolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana

Abstract Autophagy is a vital cellular quality control pathway that enables plants to adapt to changing environments. By degrading damaged or unwanted components, autophagy maintains cellular homeostasis. While the organismal phenotypes of autophagy-deficient plants under stress are well-characterized, the contribution of cell-type-specific autophagy responses to whole-plant homeostasis remains poorly understood. Here, we show that root hair-forming cells (trichoblasts) of Arabidopsis thaliana exhibit higher autophagic flux than adjacent non-hair cells (atrichoblasts). This differential autophagy is genetically linked to cell fate determination during early development. Mutants disrupting trichoblast or atrichoblast identity lose the autophagy distinction between these cell types. Functional analyses reveal that elevated autophagy in trichoblasts is essential for sodium ion sequestration in vacuoles—a key mechanism for salt stress tolerance. Disrupting autophagy specifically in trichoblasts impairs sodium accumulation and reduces plant survival under salt stress. Conversely, cell-type-specific complementation restores both sodium sequestration and stress tolerance. Our findings uncover a cell-type-specific autophagy program in root hairs and demonstrate how developmental cues shape autophagy to enhance stress resilience. This work establishes a direct link between cell identity, autophagy, and environmental adaptation in plants. Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. Data availability All the source data associated with the data presented in this manuscript is available at Zenodo. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.15034967 and DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.15034948