Project description:Light is essential for plant development, yet its influence on pathogen virulence and host immunity remains poorly understood. Here, we showed that the type III effector AvrPtoB from Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 exhibited virulence exclusively under light conditions, but this effect was completely abolished in darkness. This light-dependent regulation was controlled by transcription factor HY5, a central regulator of photomorphogenesis. AvrPtoB directly interacts with HY5 in the nucleus, facilitating its ubiquitination and subsequent degradation. Genetic disruption of HY5 completely eliminated AvrPtoB-induced susceptibility and compromised plant immunity under light. HY5 enhanced plant immunity by binding to promoters of defense-related genes, activating their expression, and stabilizing NPR1 by inhibiting NPR3-mediated degradation. The light-dependent virulence of AvrPtoB and HY5-mediated immunity were both dependent on NPR1. Our findings elucidate a previously uncharacterized mechanism through which light modulates bacterial virulence and plant immunity via the HY5-NPR1 module, providing new paradigm for understanding light-pathogen-host interactions.
Project description:Karrikins (KARs) are a class of butenolide molecules found in the smoke of burned plant material that can induce germination of many plant species that emerge after fire. Intriguingly, KAR perception is widely conserved and not limited to fire-followers. For example, germination of dormant Arabidopsis thaliana seeds can also be stimulated by KARs. Additionally, KAR treatment enhances responses of seedlings to light. These responses include inhibition of hypocotyl elongation, enhancement of cotyledon expansion, and transcriptional upregulation of light-responsive genes not only in Arabidopsis but also in Brassica tournefortii. Although the core KAR signaling mechanism, consisting of KAI2-SCF/MAX2-mediated degradation of SMAX1 and SMXL2, is well described, it remains elusive how SMXL degradation leads to downstream growth responses. In this study, we analyse the role of BBX20 in the KAR signaling pathway through both chemical and genetic approaches using knock-out mutants. We find that BBX20, together with its close homologue BBX21, is essential for KAR-induced inhibition of hypocotyl elongation and anthocyanin accumulation. Our detailed genetic analysis suggests that BBX20 and BBX21 act in a HY5-dependent transcriptional module downstream of SMAX1 and SMXL2. While RNA-seq analysis revealed large-scale transcriptional changes in the smax1 smxl2 mutant, our results clearly suggest that BBX20 and BBX21 are required for a subset of SMAX1/SMXL2-dependent transcriptional regulation. Overall, our data suggest that the KAR signaling pathway promotes the activity of the HY5-BBX transcriptional module and that this module represents a point of convergence between KAR and light signaling.
Project description:Light is a major determinant of plant growth and survival. NONEXPRESSER OF PATHOGENESIS-RELATED GENES 1 (NPR1) acts as a receptor for salicylic acid (SA) and serves as the key regulator of SA-mediated immune responses. However, the mechanisms by which plants integrate light and SA signals in response to environmental changes, as well as the role of NPR1 in regulating plant photomorphogenesis, remain poorly understood. This study shows that SA promotes plant photomorphogenesis by regulating PHYTOCHROME INTERACTING FACTOR 4 (PIF4). Specifically, NPR1 promotes photomorphogenesis under blue light by facilitating the degradation of PIF4 through light-induced polyubiquitination. NPR1 acts as a substrate adaptor for the CULLIN3-based E3 ligase, which ubiquitinates PIF4 at Lys129, Lys252, and Lys428, and leading to PIF4 degradation via the 26S proteasome pathway. Genetically, PIF4 is epistatic to NPR1 in the regulation of blue light-–induced photomorphogenesis, suggesting it acts downstream of NPR1. Furthermore, cryptochromes mediate the polyubiquitination of PIF4 by NPR1 in response to blue light by promoting the interaction and ubiquitination between NPR1 and PIF4. Transcriptome analysis revealed that, under blue light, NPR1 and PIF4 coordinately regulate numerous downstream genes related to light and auxin signaling pathways. Overall, these findings unveil a role for NPR1 in photomorphogenesis, highlighting a mechanism for post-translational regulation of PIF4 in response to blue light. This mechanism plays a pivotal role in the fine-tuning of plant development, enabling plants to adapt to complex environmental changes.
Project description:To investigate the mechanism of NPR1 regulating vascular function, we established NPR1 knockout heterozygous mice by CRISPR-Cas9. We performed high-throughput RNA sequencing to analyse the transcriptom of the aorta of NPR1 knocout heterogeneous mice.
Project description:We show that longer-term inhibition of shade avoidance in Arabidopsis is sustained by ELONGATED HYPOCOTYL 5 (HY5) and HY5 HOMOLOG (HYH) which, together, regulate transcriptional reprogramming of genes involved in hormone signalling and cell wall modification.
Project description:Genome-wide direct targets of Arabidopsis NPR1 and HAC1 were identified by chromain immunoprecipitation followed by sequencing (ChIP-seq). For the study, we used Arabidopsis expressing NPR1:GFP or HAC1:mCherry under native NPR1 or HAC1 promoter, respectively. To identify direct targets both under salicylic acid-treated and untreated conditions, we performed ChIP-seq by using 2,6-dichloroisonicotinc acid (INA; synthetic SA analog)-treated and untreated NPR1:GFP or HAC1:mCherry transgenic Arabidopsis plants.
Project description:Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), including salicylic acid (SA), target mammalian cyclooxygenases. In plants, SA is a defense hormone that regulates NON-EXPRESSOR OF PATHOGENESIS RELATED GENES 1 (NPR1), the master transcriptional regulator of immunity-related genes. We identify that the oxicam-type NSAIDs tenoxicam (TNX), meloxicam, and piroxicam, but not other types of NSAIDs, exhibit an inhibitory effect on immunity to bacteria and SA-dependent plant immune response. TNX treatment decreases NPR1 levels, independently from the proposed SA receptors NPR3 and NPR4. Instead, TNX induces oxidation of cytosolic redox status, which is also affected by SA and regulates NPR1 homeostasis. A cysteine labeling assay reveals that cysteine residues in NPR1 can be oxidized in vitro, leading to disulfide-bridged oligomerization of NPR1, but not in vivo regardless of SA or TNX treatment. Therefore, this study indicates that oxicam inhibits NPR1-mediated SA signaling without affecting the redox status of NPR1.
Project description:The transcription factor HY5 acts downstream of multiple families of the photoreceptors and promotes photomorphogenesis. Although it is well accepted that HY5 acts to regulate target gene expression, in vivo binding of HY5 to any of its target gene promoters has yet to be demonstrated. Here we used a chromatin immunoprecipitation procedure to verify suspected in vivo HY5 binding sites. We demonstrated that in vivo association of HY5 with promoter targets is not altered under distinct light qualities or during light-to-dark transition. Coupled with DNA chip hybridization using high density 60-nucleotide oligomer microarray that contains one probe for every 500 nucleotides over the entire Arabidopsis genome, we mapped genome wide in vivo HY5 binding sites. This analysis showed that HY5 binds preferentially to promoter regions in vivo and revealed over 3 thousand chromosomal sites as putative HY5 binding targets. HY5 binding targets tend to be enriched in the early light responsive genes and transcription factor genes. Our data thus supports a model in which HY5 is a high hierarchical regulator of the transcriptional cascades for photomorphogenesis. Keywords: ChIP-chip