The kinesin-13 protein BR HYPERSENSITIVE 1 is a negative brassinosteroid signaling component regulating rice growth and development

Abstract

Phytohormones performed critical roles in regulating plant architecture and thus determine grain yield in rice. However, the roles of brassinosteroids (BRs) compared to other phytohormones in shaping rice architecture are less studied. In this study, we report that BR hypersensitive1 (BHS1) plays a negative role in BR signaling and regulate rice architecture. BHS1 encodes the kinesin-13a protein and regulates grain length. We found that bhs1 was hypersensitive to BR, while BHS1-overexpression was less sensitive to BR compare to WT. BHS1 was down-regulated at RNA and protein level upon exogenous BR treatment, and proteasome inhibitor MG132 delayed the BHS1 degradation, indicating that both the transcriptional and posttranscriptional regulation machineries are involved in BHS1-mediated regulation of plant growth and development. Furthermore, we found that the BR-induced degradation of BHS1 was attenuated in Osbri1 and Osbak1 mutants, but not in Osbzr1 and Oslic mutants. Together, these results suggest that BHS1 is a novel component which is involved in negative regulation of the BR signaling downstream player of BRI1.