Molecular Rewiring of the Jasmonate Signaling Pathway to Control Auxin-Responsive Gene Expression
Ning Li,
Linggai Cao,
Wenzhuo Miu,
Ruibin Cao,
Mingbo Peng,
Wenkai Wan,
Li-Jun Huang
Affiliations
Ning Li
State Key Laboratory of Cultivation and Protection for Non-Wood Forest Trees, Ministry of Education, College of Forestry, Central South University of Forestry and Technology, Changsha 410004, China
Linggai Cao
Key Laboratory of Saline-Alkali Vegetation Ecology Restoration (SAVER), Ministry of Education, College of Life Science, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin 150040, China
Wenzhuo Miu
State Key Laboratory of Cultivation and Protection for Non-Wood Forest Trees, Ministry of Education, College of Forestry, Central South University of Forestry and Technology, Changsha 410004, China
Ruibin Cao
State Key Laboratory of Cultivation and Protection for Non-Wood Forest Trees, Ministry of Education, College of Forestry, Central South University of Forestry and Technology, Changsha 410004, China
Mingbo Peng
State Key Laboratory of Cultivation and Protection for Non-Wood Forest Trees, Ministry of Education, College of Forestry, Central South University of Forestry and Technology, Changsha 410004, China
Wenkai Wan
State Key Laboratory of Cultivation and Protection for Non-Wood Forest Trees, Ministry of Education, College of Forestry, Central South University of Forestry and Technology, Changsha 410004, China
Li-Jun Huang
State Key Laboratory of Cultivation and Protection for Non-Wood Forest Trees, Ministry of Education, College of Forestry, Central South University of Forestry and Technology, Changsha 410004, China
The plant hormone jasmonic acid (JA) has an important role in many aspects of plant defense response and developmental process. JA triggers interaction between the F-box protein COI1 and the transcriptional repressors of the JAZ family that leads the later to proteasomal degradation. The Jas-motif of JAZs is critical for mediating the COI1 and JAZs interaction in the presence of JA. Here, by using the protoplast transient gene expression system we reported that the Jas-motif of JAZ1 was necessary and sufficient to target a foreign reporter protein for COI1-facilitated degradation. We fused the Jas-motif to the SHY2 transcriptional repressor of auxin signaling pathway to create a chimeric protein JaSHY. Interestingly, JaSHY retained the transcriptional repressor function while become degradable by the JA coreceptor COI1 in a JA-dependent fashion. Moreover, the JA-induced and COI1-facilitated degradation of JaSHY led to activation of a synthetic auxin-responsive promoter activity. These results showed that the modular components of JA signal transduction pathway can be artificially redirected to regulate auxin signaling pathway and control auxin-responsive gene expression. Our work provides a general strategy for using synthetic biology approaches to explore and design cell signaling networks to generate new cellular functions in plant systems.
