A cellular gatekeeper protein helps seedlings know when to stop stretching
Wang Y, Feng R, Hu W, Zhang Z, Jiang J
Plant Signaling
The leggy, pale seedlings that stretch too much on a shady windowsill are showing you this exact pathway failing to shut off, and understanding it could help breeders design sturdier, more compact plants for crowded gardens.
Plants have a light-sensing protein called phyB that tells seedlings to stop stretching and start growing normally once they hit sunlight. This study found that a protein called Nup96, sitting at the gateway into the cell's nucleus, helps phyB cluster together properly and also helps destroy a competing protein (PIF5) that pushes seedlings to keep stretching in the dark. Without Nup96, plants get confused signals and grow leggy even in light, showing how precisely plants coordinate their light response at a molecular level.
Key Findings
Nup96, part of the nuclear pore complex, physically interacts with phyB at the nuclear envelope to promote formation of phyB photobodies (light-sensing clusters) and boost phyB activity
This interaction also strengthens phyB's binding to PIF5, a growth-promoting transcription factor, leading to PIF5's degradation; knocking out PIF5 completely rescues the elongated hypocotyl defect seen in nup96 mutant plants
The E3 ubiquitin ligase HOS1 was identified as a partner that binds PIF5 and marks it for destruction via the 26S proteasome, with Nup96 helping stabilize HOS1 to reinforce this degradation pathway
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists discovered how a nuclear pore protein called Nup96 helps plants sense light properly by organizing light-sensing machinery inside cells and clearing out a growth-promoting protein when light is present. This fine-tunes how seedlings grow toward light versus stretching in the dark.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Nucleoporin Nup96 promotes plant photomorphogenesis by facilitating phyB photobody formation and HOS1-mediated PIF5 degradation in Arabidopsis.
The initiation of light signaling involves the formation of phyB nuclear photobodies (PBs). The nuclear pore complex (NPC) is the sole gate for macromolecule transport between the cytoplasm and nuc...
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