Integration of Brassinosteroid Signal Transduction with the Transcription Network for Plant Growth Regulation in Arabidopsis

• DOI: 10.1016/j.devcel.2010.10.010
• Publication Date: 2010-11-16T09:10:47Z
• Authors: Yu Sun; Xi-Ying Fan; Dong-Mei Cao; Wenqiang Tang; Kun He; Jia-Ying Zhu; Jun-Xian He; Ming-Yi Bai; Shengwei Zhu; Eunkyoo Oh; Sunita Patil; Tae-Wuk Kim; Hongkai Ji; Wing Hong Wong; Seung Y. Rhee; Zhi-Yong Wang
• Keywords: 0301 basic medicine; Chromatin Immunoprecipitation; 0303 health sciences; Binding Sites; Light; Arabidopsis Proteins; Arabidopsis; Nuclear Proteins; Plants, Genetically Modified; DNA-Binding Proteins; 03 medical and health sciences; Plant Growth Regulators; Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; Gene Regulatory Networks; Steroids; Genome, Plant; Developmental Biology; Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; Signal Transduction; Transcription Factors

Brassinosteroids (BRs) regulate a wide range of developmental and physiological processes in plants through a receptor-kinase signaling pathway that controls the BZR transcription factors. Here, we use transcript profiling and chromatin-immunoprecipitation microarray (ChIP-chip) experiments to identify 953 BR-regulated BZR1 target (BRBT) genes. Functional studies of selected BRBTs further demonstrate roles in BR promotion of cell elongation. The BRBT genes reveal numerous molecular links between the BR-signaling pathway and downstream components involved in developmental and physiological processes. Furthermore, the results reveal extensive crosstalk between BR and other hormonal and light-signaling pathways at multiple levels. For example, BZR1 not only controls the expression of many signaling components of other hormonal and light pathways but also coregulates common target genes with light-signaling transcription factors. Our results provide a genomic map of steroid hormone actions in plants that reveals a regulatory network that integrates hormonal and light-signaling pathways for plant growth regulation.