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First published online October 21, 2005; 10.1104/pp.105.068700 Plant Physiology 139:1284-1290 (2005) © 2005 American Society of Plant Biologists A Mutation in the Anticodon of a Single tRNAala Is Sufficient to Confer Auxin Resistance in Arabidopsis1Section of Cell and Developmental Biology, Division of Biological Sciences, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California 920930116
Auxin-resistant mutants have been useful for dissecting the mechanisms that underlie auxin-mediated biological processes. Here we report the isolation and molecular characterization of a novel auxin-resistant mutant in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). Like known mutated AUX/IAA transcription factors, the mutant described here displayed dominant resistance to exogenously supplied auxins (sirtinol, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, indole-3-acetic acid) and a host of pleiotropic phenotypes, including apical hook deformation, defects in lateral root development, reduced stature, and homozygous lethality. This mutant showed the same sensitivity to the ethylene precursor 1-aminocyclopropane carboxylic acid as wild-type plants, and retained the ability to induce IAA19 expression in response to exogenously supplied indole-3-acetic acid. To our surprise, these phenotypes were not caused by a mutation in an AUX/IAA gene, but rather a mutation in a tRNAala gene in which the anticodon was found changed from CGC to CAC. Such a change results in a tRNA that is charged with alanine but recognizes the second most highly used valine codon in Arabidopsis. Therefore, the observed phenotypes are likely the composite of stochastic mutations of many proteins, including downstream effectors.
The plant hormone auxin indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) has been implicated in almost every aspect of plant growth and development ranging from embryogenesis to senescence (for recent reviews on auxin biology and biochemistry, see Dharmasiri and Estelle, 2004
Forward genetic screens for auxin-resistant mutants have identified a number of components in the IAA-signaling network including protein ubiquitin-labeling machinery, the dual-specificity phosphatase IBR5 (indole-3-butyric acid response 5), and an assortment of AUX/IAA proteins (for examples, see Leyser et al., 1993
Here we report the phenotypic characterization and cloning of a novel auxin-resistant mutant in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). Like the phenotypes caused by the reported mutations in AUX/IAA genes, the phenotypes associated with the mutant described here segregate in dominant fashion and include resistance to several auxins (IAA, 2,4-D, and sirtinol), apical hook deformation, reduced stature, and defects in lateral root development. Similar to axr5/iaa1 plants (Yang et al., 2004
Identification of a Dominant Auxin-Resistant Mutant That Is Homozygous Lethal
We screened the M2 population of ethyl methanesulfonate-mutagenized Columbia (Col) seeds for plants that were resistant to 20 µM sirtinol to identify auxin-resistant mutants (Zhao et al., 2003
All analyses/comparisons were performed with heterozygous mutant plants, which were confirmed by genotyping (below). Three-day-old light-grown mutant and wild-type seedlings are compared in Figure 1, A to C. At this stage, the difference between wild-type and heterozygous mutant plants is subtle when grown on unsupplemented Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium and consists only of a more flattened architecture of the cotyledons in the mutant, so that they are perpendicular to the hypocotyl (Fig. 1A). Though subtle, genotyping progeny of self-fertilized heterozygous plants grown on unsupplemented MS and scored on this basis confirmed that this trait was linked to the mutation (72/72). Resistance to sirtinol, 2,4-D, and IAA, as judged by primary root elongation in the presence of typically inhibiting concentrations of these compounds, is also readily discerned in the mutant at this stage (Fig. 1, B, C, and K). Finally, after 7 d on unsupplemented MS, mutant seedlings were found to have a defect in lateral root development (Fig. 1D).
In the dark, the mutant lacked the normal apical hook structure and was found to be resistant to sirtinol and 2,4-D in both the root and hypocotyl tissues (Fig. 1, EG). Somewhat surprisingly, the mutant appears to retain full sensitivity to the ethylene precursor 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxlyic acid (ACC; Fig. 1, H and L). As the plants mature, more phenotypes are evident in the mutant. The rosette leaves are more rounded and the petioles are shorter in mutant and recapitulation line (20 lines generated, below) plants (Fig. 1I), and all lines are reduced in stature relative to wild type (Fig. 1J).
Linkage analysis placed the mutated gene in the middle of the bottom arm of chromosome IV, and fine mapping narrowed the interval to an 80-kb region between markers F9D16-98 and T32A16-75 (Fig. 2A). DNA sequencing of all open reading frames in this region identified a single G-to-A transition in the anticodon (CGC to CAC) of a tRNAala encoded by the gene At4g23915. This change results in a tRNA that is charged with Ala but expected to recognize a codon for Val (GUG). It should be noted that unlike other tRNAs, which have multiple determinants located in the arms and core of the structure, sometimes including the anticodon, the indicated (*) G3-U70 wobble conserved among tRNAalas (Fig. 2B) is the only major identity determinant for tRNAala identity (Hou and Schimmel, 1988
To confirm that this mutation was responsible for the observed phenotypes, we transformed wild-type Col plants with a construct harboring the mutated tRNAala under the transcriptional control of its natural promoter. This was sufficient to both confer auxin resistance and recapitulate the adult phenotypes (Figs. 1, I and J, and 2C).
One of the hallmarks of the auxin-mediated transcriptional response is the induction of AUX/IAA genes. IAA19 expression is robustly induced during the seedling stage (Nakamura et al., 2003
tRNAscan-SE analysis of the Arabidopsis genome previously indicated the presence of 630 standard tRNAs, no selenocysteine (UCA) or suppressor (CUA, UUA) tRNAs, one tRNA of unknown isotype, and eight predicted pseudogenes (http://lowelab.ucsc.edu/GtRNAdb/Athal/; Lowe and Eddy, 1997
Here we have shown that a mutation in the anticodon of a tRNAala can in many ways mimic the phenotypes observed in several reported AUX/IAA gene mutants. In both cases, mutant phenotypes are dominant and include resistance to exogenously supplied auxin, reduced stature, and defects in lateral root development. The phenotypes associated with the mutant tRNA reported here are perhaps most similar to those recently reported with axr5/iaal, which also include more rounded rosette leaves and shortened petioles (Yang et al., 2004 The precise reasons for the similar phenotypes is not clear at present; however, in both cases (the mutant tRNA versus AUX/IAA mutants) the observed phenotypes are likely to be composites of downstream effects. With the mutant tRNA, we expect that a steady-state level of many mutated proteins contributes to the phenotypes, though a more direct effect or a major effect on one or more specific components cannot be ruled out. For example, 15 different AUX/IAA proteins contain at least one Val residue encoded by GTG within their respective domain II segments, the genetic region where all recovered AUX/IAA mutations have occurred. Therefore, Val to Ala substitutions in AUX/IAA proteins could contribute to auxin resistance, but at this time it is not clear whether that is a major determinant because (1) none of these Val residues are invariant among AUX/IAA proteins in Arabidopsis, and (2) mapped mutations have occurred only in DNA sequences encoding either a Gly residue or one of two Pro in that region. With AUX/IAA mutants, many genes are expected to be misregulated with respect to the auxin signal, and it is not known exactly how the observed pleiotropic phenotypes arise. However, given the apparent sensitivity to ACC and the potent IAA-mediated induction of IAA19, it seems likely that the mutated tRNA exerts its greatest influence over proteins encoded by downstream effector genes of the auxin pathway rather than previously identified components such as those that comprise protein degradation machinery (all of which exhibit resistance to ACC) and thus may be a useful tool for studying these auxin regulated pathways.
One such pathway is auxin-regulated cell division. It has recently been reported that transgenic Arabidopsis lines carrying a Ran-binding protein 1c RNAi knockdown construct were defective in lateral root development but auxin hypersensitive, suggesting that Ran-binding protein 1c functions to suppress certain auxin effects yet regulates mitosis in root tips (Kim et al., 2001
Mutagenesis and the Sirtinol Resistance Screen
Ethylmethane sulfonate-mutagenized Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) Col M2 seeds were purchased from Lehle Seeds. Genetic screens for sirtinol-resistant mutants were performed as previously described (Zhao et al., 2003
The mutant tRNAala described here was cloned by a map-based strategy (Lukowitz et al., 2000
For auxin, 5-d-old seedlings were transferred from 0.5x MS plates to vertical 0.5x MS plates supplemented with varying concentrations of IAA. The primary root tips were marked, and then seedlings were allowed to grow under cycling white light for an additional 2 d, after which continued root elongation was quantified using the public domain NIH Image program (developed at the United States National Institutes of Health and available on the Internet at http://rsb.info.nih.gov/nih-image). All data points are derived from a minimum of 10 plants. For ethylene, seeds were sown on 0.5x MS plates containing varying concentrations of the ethylene precursor ACC. These seeds were stratified for 2 d at 4°C, germinated under white light for exactly 2 h, and then the plates were wrapped in foil for exactly 72 h, after which time hypocotyl length was quantified with NIH Image. All data points are derived from a minimum of 15 plants.
Five-day-old seedlings grown on 0.5x MS plates were immersed in 0.5x MS liquid medium supplemented with IAA to a final concentration of 10 µM for 2 h. Seedlings were then harvested and total RNA was prepared using the Rneasy Plant mini kit (Qiagen) following the instructions provided by the manufacturer. Following first-strand cDNA synthesis, transcripts from IAA19 and UBQ10 were analyzed by PCR using the following primer combinations: IAA19, 5'-TGGTGACAACTGCGAATACG-3' and 5'-TCACTCGTCTACTCCTCTAG-3'; and UBQ10, 5'-GTCCTCAGGCTCCGTGGTG-3' and 5'-TGCCATCCTCCAACTGCTTTC-3'. Sequence data from this article can be found in the GenBank/EMBL data libraries under accession number At4g23915.
We thank Ben Greener for help with genotyping analyses. Received July 22, 2005; returned for revision September 15, 2005; accepted September 20, 2005.
1 This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (grant no. 1RO1GM68631 to Y.Z.). The author responsible for distribution of materials integral to the findings presented in this article in accordance with the policy described in the Instructions for Authors (www.plantphysiol.org) is: Yunde Zhao (yzhao{at}biomail.ucsd.edu). Article, publication date, and citation information can be found at www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/doi/10.1104/pp.105.068700. * Corresponding author; e-mail yzhao{at}biomail.ucsd.edu; fax 8585347108.
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