We are happy to announce that Ourania (Nina) Lantzouni’s second publication is out in The Plant Cell.
GROWTH-REGULATING FACTORS interact with DELLAs and regulate growth in cold stress.
Ourania Lantzouni, Angela Alkofer, Pascal Falter-Braun, and Claus Schwechheimer (2020).
DELLA proteins are repressors of the gibberellin (GA) hormone signaling pathway that act mainly by regulating transcription factor activities in plants. GAs induce DELLA repressor protein degradation and thereby control a number of critical developmental processes as well as stress responses such as cold stress. The strong impact of cold temperatures on many physiological processes has rendered it difficult to assess, based on phenotypic criteria, the role of GA and DELLAs in plant growth during cold stress. Here, we uncover substantial differences in the GA transcriptomes between plants grown at ambient temperature (21°C) and plants exposed to cold stress (4°C). We further identify over 250, to the largest extent new, DELLA-transcription factor interactions using the yeast two-hybrid system. By integrating both data sets, we reveal that most members of the nine-membered GRF (GROWTH REGULATORY FACTOR) transcription factor family are DELLA interactors and, at the same time, that several GRFs are targets of DELLA-modulated transcription after exposure to cold stress. We find that plants with altered GRF dosage are differentially sensitive to the manipulation of GA and hence DELLA levels, also after cold stress, and identify a subset of cold stress-responsive genes that qualify as targets of this DELLA-GRF regulatory module.
