A molecular framework for light and gibberellin control of cell elongation

By M. Lucas, J. Davière, M. Rodríguez-Falcón, M. Pontin, J. M. Iglesias-Pedraz, Séverine Lorrain, C. Fankhauser, M. Blázquez, E. Titarenko, S. Prat. Nature, 2008

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Cell elongation during seedling development is antagonistically regulated by light and gibberellins (GAs). Light induces photomorphogenesis, leading to inhibition of hypocotyl growth, whereas GAs promote etiolated growth, characterized by increased hypocotyl elongation. The mechanism underlying this antagonistic interaction remains unclear. Here we report on the central role of the Arabidopsis thaliana nuclear transcription factor PIF4 (encoded by PHYTOCHROME INTERACTING FACTOR 4) in the positive control of genes mediating cell elongation and show that this factor is negatively regulated by the light photoreceptor phyB (ref. 4) and by DELLA proteins that have a key repressor function in GA signalling. Our results demonstrate that PIF4 is destabilized by phyB in the light and that DELLAs block PIF4 transcriptional activity by binding the DNA-recognition domain of this factor. We show that GAs abrogate such repression by promoting DELLA destabilization, and therefore cause a concomitant accumulation of free PIF4 in the nucleus. Consistent with this model, intermediate hypocotyl lengths were observed in transgenic plants over-accumulating both DELLAs and PIF4. Destabilization of this factor by phyB, together with its inactivation by DELLAs, constitutes a protein interaction framework that explains how plants integrate both light and GA signals to optimize growth and development in response to changing environments.

Subfields: Molecular Biology, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a5a428902376ec27afeaa4d7c02f33dafe3406be

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Citations in the corpus

Arabidopsis MYC2 Interacts with DELLA Proteins in Regulating Sesquiterpene Synthase Gene Expression[W][OA] (2012, background): “DELLA proteins have been shown to interact with phytochrome interacting factors (PIF3 and PIF4) in coordinating light and GA responses (de Lucas et al., 2008; Feng et al., 2008) and with ALCATRAZ (ALC) transcription factors in controlling fruit patterning (Arnaud et al., 2010).”
Regulation of flowering time: all roads lead to Rome (2011, background): “DELLA proteins have been shown to immobilize the PHYTOCHROME INTERACTING FACTOR (PIF) proteins by directly interacting with them [143, 144].”
PHYTOCHROME-INTERACTING FACTOR 4 (PIF4) regulates auxin biosynthesis at high temperature (2011, background): “Although various PIF4 targets have been identified (10), the molecular mechanisms by which PIF4 drives elongation growth are unknown.”
Plant pigments: the many faces of light perception (2011, neutral): “…light signaling has been shown to be associated with the biosynthesis and/or signaling of multiple phytohormones including auxin, gibberellins, cytokinins, ethylene and brassinosteroids (Kurepin et al. 2007; Vandenbussche et al. 2007; de Lucas et al. 2008; Weller et al. 2009; Carvalho et al. 2010).”
Light-regulated plant growth and development. (2010, background): “…(HFR1) to prevent it from binding to DNA, transcriptional regulation by the clock and tempera ture, and proteolytic degradation upon interaction with the phytochromes (de Lucas et al., 2008; Feng et al., 2008; Hornitschek et al., 2009; Koini et al., 2009; Nozue et al., 2007; Stavang et al., 2009).”