Abstract
Gibberellins (GAs) are key regulators of plant growth and development. They promote growth by targeting the degradation of DELLA repressor proteins; however, their site of action at the cellular, tissue or organ levels remains unknown. To map the site of GA action in regulating root growth, we expressed gai, a non-degradable, mutant DELLA protein, in selected root tissues. Root growth was retarded specifically when gai was expressed in endodermal cells. Our results demonstrate that the endodermis represents the primary GA-responsive tissue regulating organ growth and that endodermal cell expansion is rate-limiting for elongation of other tissues and therefore of the root as a whole.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Nick Harberd, Mikael Norberg and Philip Benfey for providing plasmids containing the gai, GAI and GR sequences, respectively, and the Nottingham Arabidopsis Stock Centre (NASC) for providing selected GAL4 enhancer trap lines used in this study. We also wish to thank Ilda Casimiro, Eric Kramer, Nick Harberd, Andy Phillips, Steve Thomas and both anonymous referees for providing helpful feedback about the manuscript. We acknowledge the support of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (S. U.-T., J. C., R. S., K. S., P. H. and M. J. B.); BBSRC/EPSRC CISB programme funding (S. U.-T. and M. J. B.); Belgian Scientific policy (BELSPO contract BARN to G. T. S. and M. J. B.); Gatsby Charitable Foundation (J. C., M. J. B.); the Institut de Recherche pour le Dévelopement (L. L.); British Council/Egide Alliance Grant No. 05752SM (to L. L. and M. J. B.). The work in the lab of R. P. B. was supported by Vetenskapsrådet and FORMAS. R. B. would like to thank David Söderstöm for technical help.
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S. U. B. designed experiments and wrote the paper; S. U. B., R. S., J. C., K. S., L. L. and G. T. S. B. performed the research; G. T. S. B. and P. H. contributed through conceptual discussions about the role of individual tissues in organ growth; R. B. and M. J. B. initiated the project, designed experiments and wrote the paper.
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Supplementary Figures S1, S2, S3, S4, Supplementary Tables S1, S2, S3 and Supplementary Methods (PDF 4650 kb)
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Ubeda-Tomás, S., Swarup, R., Coates, J. et al. Root growth in Arabidopsis requires gibberellin/DELLA signalling in the endodermis. Nat Cell Biol 10, 625–628 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncb1726
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ncb1726
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