Abstract
Carotenoid biosynthesis is essential for the generation of photosynthetic pigments, phytohormone production, and flower color development. The light harvesting like 3 (LIL3) protein, which belongs to the light-harvesting complex protein family in photosystems, interacts with geranylgeranyl reductase (GGR) and protochlorophyllide oxidoreductase (POR) both of which are known to regulate terpenoid and chlorophyll biosynthesis, respectively, in both rice and Arabidopsis. In our study, a CRISPR-Cas9 generated 4-bp deletion mutant oslil3 showed aberrant chloroplast development, growth defects, low fertility rates and reduced pigment contents. A comparative transcriptomic analysis of oslil3 suggested that differentially expressed genes (DEGs) involved in photosynthesis, cell wall modification, primary and secondary metabolism are differentially regulated in the mutant. Protein-protein interaction assays indicated that LIL3 interacts with phytoene synthase (PSY) and in addition the gene expression of PSY genes are regulated by LIL3. Subcellular localization of LIL3 and PSY suggested that both are thylakoid membrane anchored proteins in the chloroplast. We suggest that LIL3 directly interacts with PSY to regulate carotenoid biosynthesis. This study reveals a new role of LIL3 in regulating pigment biosynthesis through interaction with the rate limiting enzyme PSY in carotenoid biosynthesis in rice presenting it as a putative target for genetic manipulation of pigment biosynthesis pathways in crop plants.
Highlights
The authors have stated that the phenotypic characterization of oslil3 mutant still needs further experiments to analyze the intermediate metabolites in carotene biosynthesis such as the contents of alfacarotene and beta-carotene, and that the analysis of oslil3 mutant is not precisely described
The authors have stated that they need to further analyze the protein accumulation levels of OsPSYs in the mutant as compared with the WT via the PSYs specific antibodies to more accurately validate the interaction between LIL3 and PSYs
* Correspondence: tsong@cuhkri.org.cn; jzhang@hkbu.edu.hk †Feng Yang and Das Debatosh contributed to this work
Summary
Retraction Note: Light Harvesting-like Protein 3 Interacts with Phytoene Synthase and Is Necessary for Carotenoid and Chlorophyll Biosynthesis in Rice
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