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Nucleoporin Nup98 participates in flowering regulation in a CONSTANS-independent mode

Plant Cell Reports volume 38, pages 1263–1271 (2019)Cite this article

A Correction to this article was published on 21 February 2020

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Abstract

Key message

Two redundant nucleoporin genes Nup98a and Nup98b bypass the CO-check point in photoperiodic signaling and integrated signals from multiple pathways to directly target FT for flowering control in Arabidopsis.

Abstract

Flowering regulation is an important and widely studied plant development event. Even though nucleoporin Nup98 has been proven to play pivotal roles in the growth and development of mammalian cells and yeast, it is still unknown if Nup98 participates in flowering control in plants. In this study, we investigated the function of two Nup98 homologs, Nup98a and Nup98b, in flowering regulation in Arabidopsis. The results showed that Nup98a and Nup98b redundantly inhibit flowering through multiple pathways including clock, photoperiod, and age pathways. Single mutants of nup98a and nup98b do not show any obvious abnormal phenotypes compared to wild-type plants; however, the nup98a1 nup98b1 double mutant displays early flowering. Significantly, Nup98a/Nup98b gate flowering in a CONSTANS (CO)-independent mode. Therefore, Nup98a/Nup98b bypasses the CO checkpoint in photoperiodic signaling and integrated signals from multiple pathways to directly target FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) for flowering control. In addition, our results provide a line of genetic evidence for uncoupling the mechanism of flowering and senescence at Nup98a/Nup98b genes in Arabidopsis, which are classically recognized as two coupled developmental events.

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Change history

  • 21 February 2020

    The authors signal an error in Fig. 1b which does not show the correct set of plants and should be replaced with the included new figure.

  • 21 February 2020

    The authors signal an error in Fig.��1b which does not show the correct set of plants and should be replaced with the included new figure.

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Acknowledgements

We thank all friends and colleagues who help us but are not included in the author list. This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant nos. 31571411 and 31370324), CAAS-Innovation Team Project and the Basal Research Fund of CAAS (Y2017CG25). We thank LetPub (www.letpub.com) for its linguistic assistance during the preparation of this manuscript.

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Author notes

  1. Shanshan Jiang and Long Xiao contributed equally.

Affiliations

  1. MOA Key Lab of Soybean Biology (Beijing), National Key Facility of Crop Gene Resource and Genetic Improvement, Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nandajie 12, Zhongguancun, Haidian District, Beijing, 100081, China

    Shanshan Jiang, Penghui Huang, Zhiyuan Cheng, Fulu Chen, Yong-Fu Fu & Xiao-Mei Zhang

  2. Key Laboratory of Soybean Biology, Ministry of Education/College of Agriculture, Northeast Agricultural University, Harbin, 150030, China

    Long Xiao & Qingshan Chen

  3. Collaborative Innovation Center of Crop Stress Biology, Henan Province, Institute of Plant Stress Biology, Henan University, Kaifeng, 475001, China

    Yuchen Miao

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  1. Shanshan Jiang
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  3. Penghui Huang
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Contributions

Conceptualization, XZ and Y-FF; methodology, Y-FF, SJ, and LX; investigation, SJ, LX, FC, PH, ZC, and YM; formal analysis and validation, SJ, LX, and Y-FF; visualization, Y-FF; and writing, Y-FF, XZ, and QC. Funding acquisition, Y-FF and XZ; project administration, Y-FF, XZ, and QC; and supervision, Y-FF.

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Correspondence to Yong-Fu Fu, Qingshan Chen or Xiao-Mei Zhang.

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Jiang, S., Xiao, L., Huang, P. et al. Nucleoporin Nup98 participates in flowering regulation in a CONSTANS-independent mode. Plant Cell Rep 38, 1263–1271 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-019-02442-w

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Keywords

  • Nuclear pore complex
  • Nucleoporin
  • Nup98
  • Flowering
  • CONSTANS
  • FLOWERING LOCUS T
  • Arabidopsis