Abstract
Plant responses to the environment are shaped by external stimuli and internal signaling pathways. In both the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana (Arabidopsis) and crop species, circadian clock factors are critical for growth, flowering, and circadian rhythms. Outside of Arabidopsis, however, little is known about the molecular function of clock gene products. Therefore, we sought to compare the function of Brachypodium distachyon (Brachypodium) and Setaria viridis (Setaria) orthologs of EARLY FLOWERING 3, a key clock gene in Arabidopsis. To identify both cycling genes and putative ELF3 functional orthologs in Setaria, a circadian RNA‐seq dataset and online query tool (Diel Explorer) were generated to explore expression profiles of Setaria genes under circadian conditions. The function of ELF3 orthologs from Arabidopsis, Brachypodium, and Setaria was tested for complementation of an elf3 mutation in Arabidopsis. We find that both monocot orthologs were capable of rescuing hypocotyl elongation, flowering time, and arrhythmic clock phenotypes. Using affinity purification and mass spectrometry, our data indicate that BdELF3 and SvELF3 could be integrated into similar complexes in vivo as AtELF3. Thus, we find that, despite 180 million years of separation, BdELF3 and SvELF3 can functionally complement loss of ELF3 at the molecular and physiological level.
Highlights
Plants have developed sophisticated signaling networks to survive and thrive in diverse environments
We found that B. distachyon and S. viridis ELF3 can complement the hypocotyl elongation, flowering time and circadian arrhythmia phenotypes caused by the elf[3] mutation in
Recent work in diverse plant species has found that the circadian clock plays critical roles in regulating metabolism, growth, photoperiodism, and other agriculturally important traits (Bendix et al, 2015; McClung, 2013; Shor and Green, 2016)
Summary
Plants have developed sophisticated signaling networks to survive and thrive in diverse environments. Circadian oscillators are best understood in the reference plant Arabidopsis thaliana, in which dozens of clock or clockassociated components have been identified using genetic screens and non-invasive, luciferasebased oscillating reporters (Hsu and Harmer, 2014; Nagel and Kay, 2012). These morning-, afternoon-, and evening-phased clock oscillators form multiple interconnected transcriptiontranslation feedback loops and compose a complex network (Hsu and Harmer, 2014; Pokhilko et al, 2012). The A. thaliana circadian clock regulates a significant portion of physiology, including photosynthesis, growth, disease resistance, starch metabolism, and phytohormone pathways (Covington et al, 2008; Graf et al, 2010; Harmer et al, 2000; Michael et al, 2008; Wang et al, 2011b), with up to 30% of gene expression under circadian control (Covington et al, 2008; Michael et al, 2008)
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