Abstract
Plants have established different mechanisms to cope with environmental fluctuations and accordingly fine‐tune their growth and development through the regulation of complex molecular networks. It is largely unknown how the network architectures change and what the key regulators in stress responses and plant growth are. Here, we investigated a complex, highly interconnected network of 20 Arabidopsis transcription factors (TFs) at the basis of leaf growth inhibition upon mild osmotic stress. We tracked the dynamic behavior of the stress‐responsive TFs over time, showing the rapid induction following stress treatment, specifically in growing leaves. The connections between the TFs were uncovered using inducible overexpression lines and were validated with transient expression assays. This study resulted in the identification of a core network, composed of ERF6, ERF8, ERF9, ERF59, and ERF98, which is responsible for most transcriptional connections. The analyses highlight the biological function of this core network in environmental adaptation and its redundancy. Finally, a phenotypic analysis of loss‐of‐function and gain‐of‐function lines of the transcription factors established multiple connections between the stress‐responsive network and leaf growth.
Highlights
Plants have established different mechanisms to cope with environmental fluctuations and fine-tune their growth and development through the regulation of complex molecular networks
ETHYLENE RESPONSE FACTOR 6 (ERF6) appeared to play a key role in this early stress response, enabling the inhibition of leaf growth and the simultaneous activation of stress-inducible genes
It is commonly assumed by biologists that a plant responds to signals via linear pathways: a signal is sensed by a receptor, leading to the activation of a signaling cascade with downstream transcription factors (TFs), which in turn regulate a series of second-order TFs, each responsible for regulating their own output genes
Summary
Plants have established different mechanisms to cope with environmental fluctuations and fine-tune their growth and development through the regulation of complex molecular networks. It is largely unknown how the network architectures change and what the key regulators in stress responses and plant growth are. We investigated a complex, highly interconnected network of 20 Arabidopsis transcription factors (TFs) at the basis of leaf growth inhibition upon mild osmotic stress. This study resulted in the identification of a core network, composed of ERF6, ERF8, ERF9, ERF59, and ERF98, which is responsible for most transcriptional connections. A phenotypic analysis of loss-of-function and gainof-function lines of the transcription factors established multiple connections between the stress-responsive network and leaf growth
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