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Root growth in Arabidopsis requires gibberellin/DELLA signalling in the endodermis

Nature Cell Biology volume 10, pages 625–628 (2008)Cite this article

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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Figure 1: Expressing gai in the Arabidopsis root endodermis disrupts organ growth.
Figure 2: Root-cell morphology is disrupted when gai is expressed in the endodermis.

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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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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Plant Integrative Biology, University of Nottingham, Loughborough, LE12 5RD, UK

    Susana Ubeda-Tomás, Ranjan Swarup, Kamal Swarup & Malcolm J. Bennett

  2. School of Biosciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, B15 2TT, UK

    Juliet Coates

  3. Institut de Recherche pour le Dévelopement, UMR 1097, 911 Avenue Agropolis, Montpellier, F-34394, cedex 5, France

    Laurent Laplaze

  4. Department of Plant Systems Biology, Flanders Institute for Biotechnology, Gent, 9052, Belgium

    Gerrit T.S. Beemster

  5. Department of Molecular Genetics, Ghent University, Gent, 9052, Belgium

    Gerrit T.S. Beemster

  6. Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, AL5 2JQ, Herts, UK

    Peter Hedden

  7. Department of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology, Umeå Plant Science Centre, SLU, Umeå, SE-901 83, Sweden

    Rishikesh Bhalerao

Authors
  1. Susana Ubeda-Tomás
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  2. Ranjan Swarup
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  3. Juliet Coates
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  4. Kamal Swarup
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  5. Laurent Laplaze
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  6. Gerrit T.S. Beemster
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  7. Peter Hedden
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  8. Rishikesh Bhalerao
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  9. Malcolm J. Bennett
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Contributions

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.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Rishikesh Bhalerao or Malcolm J. Bennett.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

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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