Brassinosteroids control root epidermal cell fate via direct regulation of a MYB-bHLH-WD40 complex by GSK3-like kinases
Abstract
In Arabidopsis, root hair and non-hair cell fates are determined by a MYB-bHLH-WD40 transcription factor complex and are regulated by many internal and environmental cues. Brassinosteroids play important roles in regulating root hair specification by unknown mechanisms. Here, we systematically examined root hair phenotypes in brassinosteroid-related mutants, and found that brassinosteroid signaling inhibits root hair formation through GSK3-like kinases or upstream components. We found that with enhanced brassinosteroid signaling, GL2, a cell fate marker for non-hair cells, is ectopically expressed in hair cells, while its expression in non-hair cells is suppressed when BR signaling is reduced. Genetic analysis demonstrated that brassinosteroid-regulated root epidermal cell patterning is dependent on the WER-GL3/EGL3-TTG1 transcription factor complex. One of the GSK3-like kinases, BIN2, interacted with and phosphorylated EGL3, and EGL3s mutated at phosphorylation siteswere retained in hair cell nuclei. BIN2 phosphorylated TTG1 to inhibit the activity of the WER-GL3/EGL3-TTG1 complex. Thus, our study provides insights into the mechanism of brassinosteroid regulation of root hair patterning.
Article and author information
Author details
Reviewing Editor
- Sheila McCormick, University of California-Berkeley & USDA Agricultural Research Service, United States
Version history
- Received: February 12, 2014
- Accepted: April 1, 2014
- Accepted Manuscript published: April 25, 2014 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: May 6, 2014 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2014, Cheng et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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