OPEN ACCESS ARTICLE

This Article Free via Open Access: OA OA Full Text Full Text (PDF) Supplemental Data OA All Versions of this Article: 145/3/736    most recent pp.107.104521v1 Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in ISI Web of Science Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via CrossRef Citing Articles via ISI Web of Science (2) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Morohashi, K. Articles by Grotewold, E. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Morohashi, K. Articles by Grotewold, E. Agricola Articles by Morohashi, K. Articles by Grotewold, E.

DEVELOPMENT AND HORMONE ACTION

Participation of the Arabidopsis bHLH Factor GL3 in Trichome Initiation Regulatory Events^1,[W],[OA]

Department of Plant Cellular and Molecular Biology (K.M., M.Y. R.L., E.G.), and Plant Biotechnology Center (E.G.), The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210; Section of Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology and the Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712 (M.Z., A.L.); and Department of Biological Sciences, California State University, San Marcos, California 92096 (B.R.)

The development of trichomes (leaf hairs) from pluripotent epidermal cells in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) provides a powerful system to investigate the regulatory motifs involved in plant cell differentiation. We show here that trichome initiation is triggered within 4 h of the induction of the GLABRA3 (GL3) basic helix-loop-helix transcription factor. Within this developmental window, GL3 binds to the promoters of at least three genes previously implicated in the development and patterning of trichomes (GL2, CAPRICE, and ENHANCER OF TRIPTYCHON AND CAPRICE1) and activates their transcription. The in vivo binding of GL3 to the promoters of these genes requires the presence of the R2R3-MYB factor GL1, supporting a model in which a GL3-GL1 complex is part of the trichome initiation enhanceosome. In contrast, GL3 is recruited to its own promoter in a GL1-independent manner, and this results in decreased GL3 expression, suggesting the presence of a GL3 negative autoregulatory loop. In support of genetic analyses indicating that ENHANCER OF GL3 (EGL3) is partially redundant with GL3, we show that EGL3 shares some direct targets with GL3. However, our results suggest that GL3 and EGL3 work independently of each other. Taken together, our results provide a regulatory framework to understand early events of epidermal cell differentiation.

² These authors contributed equally to the article.

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: Erich Grotewold (grotewold.1{at}osu.edu).

^[W] The online version of this article contains Web-only data.

^[OA] Open Access articles can be viewed online without a subscription.

www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/doi/10.1104/pp.107.104521

^* Corresponding author; e-mail grotewold.1{at}osu.edu.

Received June 25, 2007; accepted September 4, 2007; published September 7, 2007.