On April 18, 2020, the molecular plant published on-line a research paper entitled "cold induced cbf-pif3 interaction enhancements freeing tolerance by stabilizing the phyB thermosensor in Arabidopsis" by Yang Shuhua, State Key Laboratory of plant physiology and biochemistry, China Agricultural University. This paper reports the molecular mechanism of the interaction between low-temperature signal transcription factor CBFS and light signal transcription factor PIF3 to stabilize the red light and temperature receptor phyB so as to improve the freezing resistance of plants.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molp.2020.04.006
In nature, plants resist low temperature stress through growth inhibition and cold acclimation. Recent studies have shown that phyB, a red light receptor, can sense the change of external temperature (10oc-27oc) through the change of its nucleosome size and number and the change of dark reversion rate (Jung et al., 2016; Legris et al., 2016). However, the mechanism of phyB mediated plant response to low temperature stress is still unclear.
Figure 1. Molecular model diagram of cbfs-pif3-phyb module regulating plant low temperature response
Yang Shuhua's research team found that PIF3, a key transcription factor of light signal transduction pathway, negatively regulates CBF gene expression and plant freezing resistance, and E3 ubiquitin ligase ebf1 / ebf2 participates in the regulation of PIF3 protein stability (Jiang et al., PNAs, 2017). On this basis, the author further found that there was a direct interaction between CBFS and PIF3 at low temperature, which inhibited the co degradation of PIF3 and phyB protein. PhyB is regulating the freezing resistance of plants by regulating the low temperature response and the expression of growth and development related genes. The freezing resistance of phyB mutant decreased under long red or white light, and the freezing resistance of phyB overexpressed plants increased significantly under red or white light. It was also found that the enhanced stability of phyB protein at low temperature could promote the degradation of pif1, pif4 and pif5 protein, and low temperature also inhibited the expression of pif1, pif4 and pif5 genes. Therefore, CBF protein induced by low temperature can fine regulate low temperature signal through feedback regulation mechanism, so that plants can resist low temperature environment. It was found that CBFS and PIF3 integrated low temperature signal and phyB mediated light signal through interaction, and clarified the important role of phyB in plant adaptation to low temperature environment.
Dr. Jiang bochen and Associate Professor Shi Yiting of Yang Shuhua research group of China Agricultural University are the co first authors, and Professor Yang Shuhua is the corresponding author. Professor Gong Zhizhong, Professor Li Jigang of China Agricultural University, Professor Michael f Thomas how of Michigan State University and Dr Dong Jie of Yale University participated in the study. The research was supported by the special project of the Ministry of agriculture, the National Natural Science Foundation and the "double first-class" construction of universities in Beijing.
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