Plants fine-tune protein-building within minutes of bright light
Moore M, Smith AB, Wegener M, Khambalkar PB, Tyrrell RV
Plant Signaling
The tomato plant that wilts a little when the afternoon sun hits it full-on is actually running a rapid internal repair program, and understanding it could help breeders build sturdier, more sun-tolerant vegetables and ornamentals.
When a plant leaf suddenly gets hit with strong sunlight, like when a cloud passes or a shade tree's leaves shift, the plant needs to protect itself fast or risk damage to its light-harvesting machinery. Scientists found that within just 10 minutes, plant cells shift which proteins they're actively building, favoring the ones needed to keep photosynthesis running safely, well before the plant even changes which genes are turned on. A specific protein acts like a sensor that reads a signal in the light and releases instructions to build more of these protective proteins, and this same trick works in a distantly related grass, suggesting it's a widespread strategy across plants.
Key Findings
Within 10 minutes of high-light exposure, Arabidopsis plants reprogram protein translation faster and more strongly than gene transcription, based on ribosome-protected fragment sequencing and polysome profiling.
A conserved sequence motif in the 5' UTR of mRNAs binds and releases the protein GAPDH in a light- and redox-dependent manner, boosting translation of chloroplast-targeted photosynthetic proteins like the Rieske protein.
The GAPDH-motif mechanism is conserved in Setaria viridis (a grass), and it responds specifically to photosynthesis-related stress but not generic heat stress, pointing to a targeted retrograde signaling pathway.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Plants react to sudden bright light in minutes by rapidly retooling which proteins their cells build, not just which genes they switch on, helping leaves protect themselves from light damage almost instantly. This fast molecular reflex could point the way to crops that handle sun flecks and intense light better.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Translation-dependent retrograde signaling coordinates high-light acclimation in plants.
Canonical chloroplast retrograde signaling is typically defined as chloroplast-initiated signaling circuits that regulate nuclear transcription for acclimation. This study reveals that high light (...
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