Far-Red Light-Mediated Seedling Development in Arabidopsis Involves FAR-RED INSENSITIVE 219/JASMONATE RESISTANT 1-Dependent and -Independent Pathways

TL;DR

This study explores how Arabidopsis seedlings respond to far-red light and jasmonic acid, revealing the role of FIN219/JAR1 in regulating growth through hormone signaling and transcription factors.

Contribution

The study identifies FIN219/JAR1-dependent and -independent pathways in integrating far-red light and jasmonic acid signaling during Arabidopsis seedling development.

Findings

FIN219/JAR1 is involved in modulating Arabidopsis seedling sensitivity to methyl jasmonate under far-red light.

FIN219 regulates multiple transcription factors, including bHLH TFs, in response to far-red light and MeJA.

Loss-of-function mutants of certain bHLH TFs show altered hypocotyl and root elongation responses to MeJA.

Abstract

Plant growth and development is often regulated by the interaction of environmental factors such as light and various phytohormones. Arabidopsis FAR-RED INSENSITIVE 219 (FIN219)/JASMONATE RESISTANT 1 (JAR1) participates in phytochrome A-mediated far-red (FR) light signaling and interacts with different light signaling regulators. FIN219/JAR1 is a jasmonic acid (JA)-conjugating enzyme responsible for the formation of JA-isoleucine. However, how FIN219/JAR1 integrates FR light and JA signaling remains largely unknown. We used a microarray approach to dissect the effect of fin219 mutation on the interaction of FR light and JA signaling. The fin219-2 mutant was less sensitive than the wild type to various concentrations of methyl jasmonate (MeJA) under low and high FR light. High FR light reduced the sensitivity of Arabidopsis seedlings to MeJA likely through FIN219. Intriguingly, in response to MeJA, FIN219 levels showed a negative feedback regulation. Further microarray assay revealed that FR light could regulate gene expression by FIN219-dependent or -independent pathways. The expression profiles affected in fin219-2 indicated that FIN219/JAR1 plays a critical role in the integration of multiple hormone-related signaling. In particular, FIN219 regulates a number of transcription factors (TFs), including 94 basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) TFs, in response to FR light and MeJA. Loss-of-function mutants of some bHLH TFs affected by FIN219 showed altered responses to MeJA in the regulation of hypocotyl and root elongation. Thus, FIN219/JAR1 is tightly regulated in response to exogenous MeJA. It also interacts with multiple plant hormones to modulate hypocotyl and root elongation of Arabidopsis seedlings likely by regulating a group of TFs.

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