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Systemic transport of trans-zeatin and its precursor have differing roles in Arabidopsis shoots

Nature Plants volume 3, Article number: 17112 (2017) Cite this article

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Abstract

Organ-to-organ signal transmission is essential for higher organisms to ensure coordinated biological reactions during metabolism and morphogenesis. Similar to organs in animals, plant organs communicate by various signalling molecules. Among them, cytokinins, a class of phytohormones, play a key role as root-to-shoot long-distance signals, regulating various growth and developmental processes in shoots1,2. Previous studies have proposed that trans-zeatin-riboside, a type of cytokinin precursor, is a major long-distance signalling form in xylem vessels and its action depends on metabolic conversion via the LONELY GUY enzyme in proximity to the site of action3–5. Here we report an additional long-distance signalling form of cytokinin: trans-zeatin, an active form. Grafting between various cytokinin biosynthetic and transportation mutants revealed that root-to-shoot translocation of trans-zeatin, a minor component of xylem cytokinin, controls leaf size but not meristem activity-related traits, whereas that of trans-zeatin riboside is sufficient for regulating both traits. Considering the ratio of trans-zeatin to trans-zeatin-riboside in xylem and their delivery rate change in response to environmental conditions, this dual long-distance cytokinin signalling system allows plants to fine-tune the manner of shoot growth to adapt to fluctuating environments.

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Figure 1: tZ, an active form of cytokinin, is translocated from the root to shoot via the xylem.
Figure 2: Recovery of log1234578 shoot phenotypes grafted onto a WT root.
Figure 3: tZ, but not its precursor, is effective for inducing the type-A ARR and enhancing growth in log1234578 shoots.
Figure 4: Not all shoot traits are recovered in the log1234578/WT.

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Acknowledgements

We thank N. Ifuku (RIKEN) for support with all of the experiments A.O. performed. We also thank T. Notaguchi (Nagoya University) for instruction on the grafting technique. This work was supported by the Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B; no. JP16K18566), the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas (no. JP16H01477 and JP17H06473) and the NC-CARP project from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and JST CREST (no. JPMJCR13B1), Japan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science, 1-7-22 Suehiro, Tsurumi, 230-0045, Yokohama, Japan

    Asami Osugi, Mikiko Kojima, Yumiko Takebayashi, Nanae Ueda, Takatoshi Kiba & Hitoshi Sakakibara

  2. Department of Biological Mechanisms and Functions, Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences, Nagoya University, Chikusa, 464-8601, Nagoya, Japan

    Asami Osugi & Hitoshi Sakakibara

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  1. Asami Osugi
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Contributions

A.O. conceived the study. A.O., T.K. and H.S. designed the experiments. A.O., M.K., Y.T., N.U. and T.K. performed the experiments. A.O., T.K. and H.S. discussed the results and wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Hitoshi Sakakibara.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Supplementary Figures 1–7, Supplementary Tables 1–4. (PDF 3510 kb)

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Osugi, A., Kojima, M., Takebayashi, Y. et al. Systemic transport of trans-zeatin and its precursor have differing roles in Arabidopsis shoots. Nature Plants 3, 17112 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nplants.2017.112

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