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Shwartz I, Yahav C, Kovetz N, Levy M, Israeli A, Bar M, Duval KL, Krall EG, Teboul N, Jiménez-Gómez JM, Deal RB, Ori N. The VIL gene CRAWLING ELEPHANT controls maturation and differentiation in tomato via polycomb silencing. PLoS Genet 2022; 18:e1009633. [PMID: 35255095 PMCID: PMC8939788 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1009633] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/27/2021] [Revised: 03/22/2022] [Accepted: 02/22/2022] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
VERNALIZATION INSENSITIVE 3-LIKE (VIL) proteins are PHD-finger proteins that recruit the repressor complex Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 (PRC2) to the promoters of target genes. Most known VIL targets are flowering repressor genes. Here, we show that the tomato VIL gene CRAWLING ELEPHANT (CREL) promotes differentiation throughout plant development by facilitating the trimethylation of Histone H3 on lysine 27 (H3K27me3). We identified the crel mutant in a screen for suppressors of the simple-leaf phenotype of entire (e), a mutant in the AUX/IAA gene ENTIRE/SlIAA9, involved in compound-leaf development in tomato. crel mutants have increased leaf complexity, and suppress the ectopic blade growth of e mutants. In addition, crel mutants are late flowering, and have delayed and aberrant stem, root and flower development. Consistent with a role for CREL in recruiting PRC2, crel mutants show drastically reduced H3K27me3 enrichment at approximately half of the 14,789 sites enriched in wild-type plants, along with upregulation of many underlying genes. Interestingly, this reduction in H3K27me3 across the genome in crel is also associated with gains in H3K27me3 at a smaller number of sites that normally have modest levels of the mark in wild-type plants, suggesting that PRC2 activity is no longer limiting in the absence of CREL. Our results uncover a wide role for CREL in plant and organ differentiation in tomato and suggest that CREL is required for targeting PRC2 activity to, and thus silencing, a specific subset of polycomb targets. Plants form organs continuously throughout their lives, and the number and shape of their organs is determined in a flexible manner according to the internal and external circumstances. Alongside this flexibility, plants maintain basic developmental programs to ensure proper functioning. Among the ways by which plants achieve flexible development is by tuning the pace of their maturation and differentiation, at both the plant and organ levels. One of the ways plants regulate the rate of maturation and differentiation is by changing gene expression. Here, we identified a gene that promotes plant and organ maturation and differentiation. This gene, CRAWLING ELEPHANT (CREL) acts by bringing a repressing complex to target genes. We show the importance of CREL in multiple developmental processes and in the expression of multiple genes throughout the tomato genome.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ido Shwartz
- Institute of Plant Sciences and Genetics in Agriculture, The Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel
| | - Chen Yahav
- Institute of Plant Sciences and Genetics in Agriculture, The Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel
| | - Neta Kovetz
- Institute of Plant Sciences and Genetics in Agriculture, The Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel
| | - Matan Levy
- Institute of Plant Sciences and Genetics in Agriculture, The Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel
| | - Alon Israeli
- Institute of Plant Sciences and Genetics in Agriculture, The Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel
| | - Maya Bar
- Institute of Plant Sciences and Genetics in Agriculture, The Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel
| | - Katherine L. Duval
- Department of Biology, O. Wayne Rollins Research Center, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America
| | - Ellen G. Krall
- Department of Biology, O. Wayne Rollins Research Center, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America
| | - Naama Teboul
- Institute of Plant Sciences and Genetics in Agriculture, The Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel
| | - José M. Jiménez-Gómez
- Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Cologne, Germany
- Institut Jean-Pierre Bourgin, INRAE, AgroParisTech, Université Paris-Saclay, Versailles, France
- Centro de Biotecnología y Genómica de Plantas (CBGP), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM)—Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria (INIA-CSIC), Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid, Spain
| | - Roger B. Deal
- Department of Biology, O. Wayne Rollins Research Center, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America
- * E-mail: (RD); (NO)
| | - Naomi Ori
- Institute of Plant Sciences and Genetics in Agriculture, The Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel
- * E-mail: (RD); (NO)
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Abstract
Plants continuously form new organs in different developmental contexts in response to environmental cues. Underground lateral roots initiate from prepatterned cells in the main root, but cells can also bypass the root-shoot trajectory separation and generate shoot-borne roots through an unknown mechanism. We mapped tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) shoot-borne root development at single-cell resolution and showed that these roots initiate from phloem-associated cells through a unique transition state. This state requires the activity of a transcription factor that we named SHOOTBORNE ROOTLESS (SBRL). Evolutionary analysis reveals that SBRL's function and cis regulation are conserved in angiosperms and that it arose as an ancient duplication, with paralogs controlling wound-induced and lateral root initiation. We propose that the activation of a common transition state by context-specific regulators underlies the plasticity of plant root systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Moutasem Omary
- The Institute of Plant Science and Genetics in Agriculture, Faculty of Agriculture, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel
| | - Naama Gil-Yarom
- The Institute of Plant Science and Genetics in Agriculture, Faculty of Agriculture, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel
| | - Chen Yahav
- The Institute of Plant Science and Genetics in Agriculture, Faculty of Agriculture, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel
| | - Evyatar Steiner
- Department of Plant Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
| | - Anat Hendelman
- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY, USA
| | - Idan Efroni
- The Institute of Plant Science and Genetics in Agriculture, Faculty of Agriculture, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel
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Abstract
Plants continuously form new organs in different developmental contexts in response to environmental cues. Underground lateral roots initiate from prepatterned cells in the main root, but cells can also bypass the root-shoot trajectory separation and generate shoot-borne roots through an unknown mechanism. We mapped tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) shoot-borne root development at single-cell resolution and showed that these roots initiate from phloem-associated cells through a unique transition state. This state requires the activity of a transcription factor that we named SHOOTBORNE ROOTLESS (SBRL). Evolutionary analysis reveals that SBRL's function and cis regulation are conserved in angiosperms and that it arose as an ancient duplication, with paralogs controlling wound-induced and lateral root initiation. We propose that the activation of a common transition state by context-specific regulators underlies the plasticity of plant root systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Moutasem Omary
- The Institute of Plant Science and Genetics in Agriculture, Faculty of Agriculture, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel
| | - Naama Gil-Yarom
- The Institute of Plant Science and Genetics in Agriculture, Faculty of Agriculture, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel
| | - Chen Yahav
- The Institute of Plant Science and Genetics in Agriculture, Faculty of Agriculture, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel
| | - Evyatar Steiner
- Department of Plant Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
| | - Anat Hendelman
- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY, USA
| | - Idan Efroni
- The Institute of Plant Science and Genetics in Agriculture, Faculty of Agriculture, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel
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Lieberman-Lazarovich M, Yahav C, Israeli A, Efroni I. Deep Conservation of cis-Element Variants Regulating Plant Hormonal Responses. Plant Cell 2019; 31:2559-2572. [PMID: 31467248 PMCID: PMC6881130 DOI: 10.1105/tpc.19.00129] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/25/2019] [Accepted: 08/27/2019] [Indexed: 05/14/2023]
Abstract
Phytohormones regulate many aspects of plant life by activating transcription factors (TFs) that bind sequence-specific response elements (REs) in regulatory regions of target genes. Despite their short length, REs are degenerate, with a core of just 3 to 4 bp. This degeneracy is paradoxical, as it reduces specificity and REs are extremely common in the genome. To study whether RE degeneracy might serve a biological function, we developed an algorithm for the detection of regulatory sequence conservation and applied it to phytohormone REs in 45 angiosperms. Surprisingly, we found that specific RE variants are highly conserved in core hormone response genes. Experimental evidence showed that specific variants act to regulate the magnitude and spatial profile of hormonal response in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) and tomato (Solanum lycopersicum). Our results suggest that hormone-regulated TFs bind a spectrum of REs, each coding for a distinct transcriptional response profile. Our approach has implications for precise genome editing and for rational promoter design.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michal Lieberman-Lazarovich
- Institute of Plant Sciences and Genetics in Agriculture, The Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, The Hebrew University, Rehovot 7610001, Israel
| | - Chen Yahav
- Institute of Plant Sciences and Genetics in Agriculture, The Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, The Hebrew University, Rehovot 7610001, Israel
| | - Alon Israeli
- Institute of Plant Sciences and Genetics in Agriculture, The Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, The Hebrew University, Rehovot 7610001, Israel
| | - Idan Efroni
- Institute of Plant Sciences and Genetics in Agriculture, The Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, The Hebrew University, Rehovot 7610001, Israel
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