Role of Serine/Threonine O-GlcNAc Modifications in Signaling Networks

Abstract

Significant evidence suggests that serine/threonine-O-linked N-acetyl glucosamine0-(GlcNAc) modifications play a central role in the regulation of plant signaling networks. Forexample, mutations in SPINDLY,) SPY (an O-GlcNAc transferase,) OGT (promote gibberellin GA) (signal transduction and inhibit cytokinin responses. In addition, mutating both Arabidopsis OGTsSEC (and SPY) causes embryo lethality. The long-term goal of this research is to elucidate the mechanism by which Arabidopsis OGTs regulate signaling networks. This project investigated the mechanisms of O-GlcNAc regulation of cytokinin and gibberellin signaling, identified additional processes regulated by this modification and investigated the regulation of SEC activity. Although SPY is a nucleocytoplasmic protein, its site of action and targets were unknown. Severalstudies suggested that SPY acted in the nucleus where it modified nuclear components such as the DELLA proteins. Using chimeric GFP-SPY fused to a nuclear-export signal or to a nuclear-import signal, we showed that cytosolic, but not nuclear SPY, regulated cytokinin and GA signaling. We also obtained evidence suggesting that GA and SPY affect cytokinin signaling via a DELLA-independent pathway. Although SEC and SPY were believed to have overlapping functions, the role of SEC in cytokinin and GA signaling was unclear. The role of SEC in cytokinin and GA responses was investigated by partially suppressing SPY expression in secplants using a synthetic Spymicro RNA miR(SPY). The possible contribution of SEC to the regulation of GA and cytokinin signaling wastest by determining the resistance of the miR spy secplants to the GA biosynthesis inhibitor paclobutrazol and to cytokinin. We found that the transgenic plants were resistant to paclobutrazol and to cytokinin, butonlyata level similar to spy. Moreover, expressing SEC under the 35S promoter in spy mutant did not complement the spy mutation. Therefore, we believe that SEC does not act with SPY to regulate GA or cytokinin responses. The cellular targets of Spy are largely unknown. We identified the transcription factor TCP15 in a two-hybrid screen for SPY-interacting proteins and showed that both TCP15 and its closely homolog TCP14 were O-GlcNAc modified by bacterially-produced SEC. The significance of the interaction between SPY and these TCPs was examined by over-expressing the minwild-type and spy-4plants. Overexpression of TCP14 or TCP15 in wild-type background produced phenotypes typical of plants with increased cytokinin and reduced GA signaling. TCP14 overexpression phenotypes were strongly suppressed in the spy background, suggesting that TCP14 and TCP15 affect cytokinin and GA signaling and that SPY activates them. In agreement with this hypothesis, we created a tcp14tcp15 double mutant and found that it has defects similar to spyplants. In animals, O-GlcNAc modification is proposed to regulate the activity of the nuclear pore. Therefore, after discovering that SEC modified a nucleoporinNUP) (that also interacts with SPY, we performed genetic experiments exploring the relationship between NUPs and SPY nupspy double mutants exhibited phenotypes consistent with SPY and NUPs functioning in common processes and nupseeds were resistant to GA biosynthesis inhibitors. All eukaryotic OGTs have a TPR domain. Deletion studies with bacterially-expressed SEC demonstrated SEC'sTPR domain inhibits SEC enzymatic activity. Since the TPR domain interacts with other proteins, we propose that regulatory proteins regulate OGT activity by binding and modulating the inhibitory activity of the TPR domain.