The Arabidopsis O-fucosyltransferase SPINDLY regulates root hair patterning independently of gibberellin signaling

Development. 2020 Oct 9;147(19):dev192039. doi: 10.1242/dev.192039.

Abstract

Root hairs are able to sense soil composition and play an important role in water and nutrient uptake. In Arabidopsis thaliana, root hairs are distributed in the epidermis in a specific pattern, regularly alternating with non-root hair cells in continuous cell files. This patterning is regulated by internal factors such as a number of hormones, as well as by external factors like nutrient availability. Thus, root hair patterning is an excellent model for studying the plasticity of cell fate determination in response to environmental changes. Here, we report that loss-of-function mutants for the Protein O-fucosyltransferase SPINDLY (SPY) show defects in root hair patterning. Using transcriptional reporters, we show that patterning in spy-22 is affected upstream of GLABRA2 (GL2) and WEREWOLF (WER). O-fucosylation of nuclear and cytosolic proteins is an important post-translational modification that is still not very well understood. So far, SPY is best characterized for its role in gibberellin signaling via fucosylation of the growth-repressing DELLA protein REPRESSOR OF ga1-3 (RGA). Our data suggest that the epidermal patterning defects in spy-22 are independent of RGA and gibberellin signaling.

Keywords: Arabidopsis; Gibberellin; Glycosylation; Root hair patterning.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Arabidopsis / genetics
  • Arabidopsis / metabolism*
  • Arabidopsis Proteins / genetics
  • Arabidopsis Proteins / metabolism*
  • DNA-Binding Proteins / genetics
  • DNA-Binding Proteins / metabolism
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Plant
  • Gibberellins / metabolism*
  • Glycosylation
  • Homeodomain Proteins / genetics
  • Homeodomain Proteins / metabolism
  • Plant Roots / genetics
  • Plant Roots / metabolism*
  • Repressor Proteins / genetics
  • Repressor Proteins / metabolism*
  • Signal Transduction

Substances

  • Arabidopsis Proteins
  • DNA-Binding Proteins
  • GL2 protein, Arabidopsis
  • Gibberellins
  • Homeodomain Proteins
  • Repressor Proteins
  • SPY protein, Arabidopsis
  • WER protein, Arabidopsis