Functional Divergence of the Arabidopsis Florigen-Interacting bZIP Transcription Factors FD and FDP

Maida Romera-Branchat; Edouard Severing; Chloé Pocard; Hyonhwa Ohr; Coral Vincent; Guillaume Née; Rafael Martinez-Gallegos; Seonghoe Jang; Fernando Andrés; Pedro Madrigal; George Coupland

doi:10.1016/j.celrep.2020.107717

Functional Divergence of the Arabidopsis Florigen-Interacting bZIP Transcription Factors FD and FDP

Cell Rep. 2020 Jun 2;31(9):107717. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2020.107717.

Affiliations

¹ Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Carl-von-Linné-Weg 10, 50829 Cologne, Germany.
² Institute of Plant Biology and Biotechnology, University of Münster, Schlossplatz 7, 48143 Münster, Germany.
³ Department of Biometry and Bioinformatics, Institute of Plant Genetics, Polish Academy of Sciences, 60-479 Poznań, Poland.
⁴ Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Carl-von-Linné-Weg 10, 50829 Cologne, Germany. Electronic address: coupland@mpipz.mpg.de.

Abstract

Flowering of many plant species depends on interactions between basic leucine zipper (bZIP) transcription factors and systemically transported florigen proteins. Members of the genus Arabidopsis contain two of these bZIPs, FD and FDP, which we show have largely complementary expression patterns in shoot apices before and during flowering. CRISPR-Cas9-induced null mutants for FDP flower slightly earlier than wild-type, whereas fd mutants are late flowering. Identical G-box sequences are enriched at FD and FDP binding sites, but only FD binds to genes involved in flowering and only fd alters their transcription. However, both proteins bind to genes involved in responses to the phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA), which controls developmental and stress responses. Many of these genes are differentially expressed in both fd and fdp mutant seedlings, which also show reduced ABA sensitivity. Thus, florigen-interacting bZIPs have distinct functions in flowering dependent on their expression patterns and, at earlier stages in development, play common roles in phytohormone signaling.

Keywords: ABA; Arabidopsis; ChIP-seq; FD; FDP; FT; RNA-seq; bZIPs; florigen; flowering.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Abscisic Acid / pharmacology
Arabidopsis / genetics
Arabidopsis / metabolism*
Arabidopsis Proteins / classification
Arabidopsis Proteins / genetics
Arabidopsis Proteins / metabolism*
Basic-Leucine Zipper Transcription Factors / classification
Basic-Leucine Zipper Transcription Factors / genetics
Basic-Leucine Zipper Transcription Factors / metabolism*
CCAAT-Enhancer-Binding Protein-beta / genetics
CCAAT-Enhancer-Binding Protein-beta / metabolism
CRISPR-Cas Systems / genetics
Florigen / metabolism*
Flowers / genetics
Flowers / metabolism
Gene Editing
Gene Expression Regulation, Plant / drug effects
Genotype
Homeodomain Proteins / genetics
Homeodomain Proteins / metabolism
MADS Domain Proteins / genetics
MADS Domain Proteins / metabolism
Mutagenesis
Phylogeny
Plants, Genetically Modified / metabolism
Transcription Factors / genetics
Transcription Factors / metabolism

Substances

AP1 protein, Arabidopsis
Arabidopsis Proteins
Basic-Leucine Zipper Transcription Factors
CCAAT-Enhancer-Binding Protein-beta
FT protein, Arabidopsis
Florigen
Homeodomain Proteins
LFY protein, Arabidopsis
MADS Domain Proteins
MYB44 protein, Arabidopsis
Transcription Factors
atHB-12 protein, Arabidopsis
Abscisic Acid