MpANT regulates meristem development in Marchantia polymorpha
Wu Liu,
Zhengfei Yang,
Gui Cai,
Bingyu Li,
Shujing Liu,
Viola Willemsen,
Lin Xu
Affiliations
Wu Liu
National Key Laboratory of Plant Molecular Genetics, CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 300 Fenglin Road, Shanghai 200032, China; Key Laboratory of Plant Carbon Capture, CAS, Shanghai 200032, China; Cluster of Plant Developmental Biology, Laboratory of Cell and Developmental Biology, Wageningen University & Research, Droevendaalsesteeg 1, 6708 PB Wageningen, the Netherlands
Zhengfei Yang
National Key Laboratory of Plant Molecular Genetics, CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 300 Fenglin Road, Shanghai 200032, China; College of Life Sciences, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai 200234, China
Gui Cai
National Key Laboratory of Plant Molecular Genetics, CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 300 Fenglin Road, Shanghai 200032, China; Key Laboratory of Plant Carbon Capture, CAS, Shanghai 200032, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquan Road, Beijing 100049, China
Bingyu Li
National Key Laboratory of Plant Molecular Genetics, CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 300 Fenglin Road, Shanghai 200032, China; Key Laboratory of Plant Carbon Capture, CAS, Shanghai 200032, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquan Road, Beijing 100049, China
Shujing Liu
SciLifeLab, Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology, Karolinska Institutet, Solna, Sweden
Viola Willemsen
Cluster of Plant Developmental Biology, Laboratory of Cell and Developmental Biology, Wageningen University & Research, Droevendaalsesteeg 1, 6708 PB Wageningen, the Netherlands; Corresponding author
Lin Xu
National Key Laboratory of Plant Molecular Genetics, CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 300 Fenglin Road, Shanghai 200032, China; Key Laboratory of Plant Carbon Capture, CAS, Shanghai 200032, China; Corresponding author
Summary: Meristems are crucial for organ formation, but our knowledge of their molecular evolution is limited. Here, we show that AINTEGUMENTA (MpANT) in the euANT branch of the APETALA2-like transcription factor family is essential for meristem development in the nonvascular plant Marchantia polymorpha. MpANT is expressed in the thallus meristem. Mpant mutants show defects to maintain meristem identity and undergo meristem duplication, while MpANT overexpressers show ectopic thallus growth. MpANT directly upregulates MpGRAS9 in the SHORT-ROOT (SHR) branch of the GRAS family. In the vascular plant Arabidopsis thaliana, the euANT-branch genes PLETHORAs (AtPLTs) and AtANT are involved in the formation and maintenance of root/shoot apical meristems and lateral organ primordia, and AtPLTs directly target SHR-branch genes. In addition, euANTs bind through a similar DNA-binding motif to many conserved homologous genes in M. polymorpha and A. thaliana. Overall, the euANT pathway has an evolutionarily conserved role in meristem development.
