Direct attenuation of Arabidopsis ERECTA signalling by a pair of U-box E3 ligases.

Plants sense a myriad of signals through cell-surface receptors to coordinate their development and environmental response. The Arabidopsis ERECTA receptor kinase regulates diverse developmental processes via perceiving multiple EPIDERMAL PATTERNING FACTOR (EPF)/EPF-LIKE peptide ligands. How the activated ERECTA protein is turned over is unknown. Here we identify two closely related plant U-box ubiquitin E3 ligases, PUB30 and PUB31, as key attenuators of ERECTA signalling for two developmental processes: inflorescence/pedicel growth and stomatal development. Loss-of-function pub30 pub31 mutant plants exhibit extreme inflorescence/pedicel elongation and reduced stomatal numbers owing to excessive ERECTA protein accumulation. Ligand activation of ERECTA leads to phosphorylation of PUB30/31 via BRI1-ASSOCIATED KINASE1 (BAK1), which acts as a coreceptor kinase and a scaffold to promote PUB30/31 to associate with and ubiquitinate ERECTA for eventual degradation. Our work highlights PUB30 and PUB31 as integral components of the ERECTA regulatory circuit that ensure optimal signalling outputs, thereby defining the role for PUB proteins in developmental signalling.

Regulation of floral patterning and organ identity by Arabidopsis ERECTA-family receptor kinase genes.

Due to the lack of cell migration, plant organogenesis relies on coordinated cell proliferation, cell growth, and differentiation. A flower possesses a complex structure, with sepals and petals constituting the perianth, and stamens and pistils where male and female gametophytes differentiate. While advances have been made in our understanding of gene regulatory networks controlling flower development, relatively little is known of how cell-cell coordination influences floral organ specification. The Arabidopsis ERECTA (ER)-family receptor kinases, ER, ER-LIKE1 (ERL1), and ERL2, regulate inflorescence architecture, organ shape, and epidermal stomatal patterning. Here it is reported that ER-family genes together regulate floral meristem organization and floral organ identity. The stem cell marker CLAVATA3 exhibits misplaced expression in the floral meristems of the er erl1 erl2 mutant. Strikingly, homeotic conversion of sepals to carpels was observed in er erl1 erl2 flowers. Consistently, ectopic expression of AGAMOUS, which determines carpel identity, was detected in er erl1 erl2 flower primordia. Among the known downstream components of ER-family receptor kinases in stomatal patterning, YODA (YDA) is also required for proper floral patterning. YDA and the ER-family show complex, synergistic genetic interactions: er erl1 erl2 yda quadruple mutant plants become extremely small, callus-like masses. While a constitutively active YDA fully rescues stomatal clustering in er erl1 erl2, it only partially rescues er erl1 erl2 flower defects. The study suggests that ER-family signalling is crucial for ensuring proper expression domains of floral meristem and floral organ identity determinants, and further implies the existence of a non-canonical downstream pathway.

Haploinsufficiency after successive loss of signaling reveals a role for ERECTA-family genes in Arabidopsis ovule development.

The Arabidopsis genome contains three ERECTA-family genes, ERECTA (ER), ERECTA-LIKE 1 (ERL1) and ERL2 that encode leucine-rich repeat receptor-like kinases. This gene family acts synergistically to coordinate cell proliferation and growth during above-ground organogenesis with the major player, ER, masking the loss-of-function phenotypes of the other two members. To uncover the specific developmental consequence and minimum threshold requirement for signaling, ER-family gene function was successively eliminated. We report here that ERL2 is haploinsufficient for maintaining female fertility in the absence of ER and ERL1. Ovules of the haploinsufficient er-105 erl1-2 erl2-1/+ mutant exhibit abnormal development with reduced cell proliferation in the integuments and gametophyte abortion. Our analysis indicates that progression of integument growth requires ER-family signaling in a dosage-dependent manner and that transcriptional compensation among ER-family members occurs to maintain the required signaling threshold. The specific misregulation of cyclin A genes in the er-105 erl1-2 erl2-1/+ mutant suggests that downstream targets of the ER-signaling pathway might include these core cell-cycle regulators. Finally, genetic interaction of the ER family and the WOX-family gene, PFS2, reveals their contribution to integument development through interrelated mechanisms.

Autonomy of cell proliferation and developmental programs during Arabidopsis aboveground organ morphogenesis.

Elaboration of size and shape in multicellular organisms involves coordinated cell division and cell growth. In higher plants, continuity of cell layer structures exists from the shoot apical meristem (SAM), where organ primordia arise, to mature aboveground organs. To unravel the extent of inter-cell layer coordination during SAM and aboveground organ development, cell division in the epidermis was selectively restricted by expressing two cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor genes, KRP1/ICK1 and KRP4, driven by the L1 layer-specific AtML1 promoter. The transgenes conferred reduced plant size with striking, distorted lateral organ shape. While epidermal cell division was severely inhibited with compensatory cell size enlargement, the underlying mesophyll/cortex layer kept normal cell numbers and resulted in small, packed cells with disrupted cell files. Our results demonstrate the autonomy of cell number checkpoint in the underlying tissues when epidermal cell division is restricted. Finally, the L1 layer-specific expression of both KRP1/ICK1 and KRP4 showed no effects on the structure and function of the SAM, suggesting that the effects of these cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors are context dependent.

Interaction of auxin and ERECTA in elaborating Arabidopsis inflorescence architecture revealed by the activation tagging of a new member of the YUCCA family putative flavin monooxygenases.

The aboveground body of higher plants has a modular structure of repeating units, or phytomers. As such, the position, size, and shape of the individual phytomer dictate the plant architecture. The Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) ERECTA (ER) gene regulates the inflorescence architecture by affecting elongation of the internode and pedicels, as well as the shape of lateral organs. A large-scale activation-tagging genetic screen was conducted in Arabidopsis to identify novel genes and pathways that interact with the ER locus. A dominant mutant, super1-D, was isolated as a nearly complete suppressor of a partial loss-of-function allele er-103. We found that SUPER1 encodes YUCCA5, a novel member of the YUCCA family of flavin monooxygenases. The activation tagging of YUCCA5 conferred increased levels of free indole acetic acid, increased auxin response, and mild phenotypic characteristics of auxin overproducers, such as elongated hypocotyls, epinastic cotyledons, and narrow leaves. Both genetic and cellular analyses indicate that auxin and the ER pathway regulate cell division and cell expansion in a largely independent but overlapping manner during elaboration of inflorescence architecture.