OCTOPUS Negatively Regulates BIN2 to Control Phloem Differentiation in Arabidopsis thaliana
Résumé
The phloem is a vascular strand that conducts photo-assimilates and systemic signals throughout the plant to coordinate growth. To date, few molecular genetic determinants have been identified to control both specification and differentiation of this tissue [1-3]. Among them, OCTOPUS (OPS) protein was previously identified as a polarly localized plasma membrane-associated protein of unknown biochemical function whose broad provascular expression becomes restricted to the phloem upon differentiation [2]. OPS loss-of-function mutants showed an altered vascular network in cotyledons and an intermittent phloem differentiation in the root [2, 4]. Here, we demonstrate a role for OPS as a positive regulator of the brassinosteroid (BR) signaling pathway. Indeed, transgenic lines overexpressing OPS (OPS-OE) display the hallmarks of constitutively overactivated BR mutants. Physiological and genetic analyses place OPS as a positive regulator of the BR signaling pathway upstream of the key transcription factors BES1 and BZR1. Directed protein interactions with known BR signaling proteins identified BIN2, a GSK3 protein involved in multiple signaling pathways, as a partner of OPS. This interaction recruits BIN2 to the plasma membrane, thus preventing its inhibitory activity in the nucleus. Finally, both bikinin (a potent inhibitor of GSK3 [5]) treatment and downstream dominant mutants bes1-D [6] and bzr1-D [7] can rescue phloem defects of ops in the root. Together, our data show that OPS antagonizes BIN2 to promote phloem differentiation.