The Epidermis Coordinates Thermoresponsive Growth Through the PhyB-PIF4-auxin Pathway

Overview

Journal Nat Commun

Specialty Biology

Date 2020 Feb 28

PMID 32103019

Citations 48

Authors

Sara Kim

Geonhee Hwang

Soohwan Kim

Thom Nguyen Thi

Hanim Kim

Jinkil Jeong

Jaewook Kim

Jungmook Kim

Giltsu Choi

Eunkyoo Oh

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

In plants, an elevation in ambient temperature induces adaptive morphological changes including elongated hypocotyls, which is predominantly regulated by a bHLH transcription factor, PIF4. Although PIF4 is expressed in all aerial tissues including the epidermis, mesophyll, and vascular bundle, its tissue-specific functions in thermomorphogenesis are not known. Here, we show that epidermis-specific expression of PIF4 induces constitutive long hypocotyls, while vasculature-specific expression of PIF4 has no effect on hypocotyl growth. RNA-Seq and qRT-PCR analyses reveal that auxin-responsive genes and growth-related genes are highly activated by epidermal, but not by vascular, PIF4. Additionally, inactivation of epidermal PIF4 or auxin signaling, and overexpression of epidermal phyB suppresses thermoresponsive growth, indicating that epidermal PIF4-auxin pathways are essential for the temperature responses. Further, we show that high temperatures increase both epidermal PIF4 transcription and the epidermal PIF4 DNA-binding ability. Taken together, our study demonstrates that the epidermis regulates thermoresponsive growth through the phyB-PIF4-auxin pathway.

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