MicroRNAs (miRNAs) function as sequence-specific guides that control gene expression by post-transcriptional gene silencing. Many miRNAs influence plant development by regulating the accumulation of transcripts that encode transcription factors. Mutants defective in miRNA accumulation, such as dcl1, hen1, hyl1 and ago1, have pleiotropic developmental phenotypes. The serrate-1 (se-1) mutant of Arabidopsis also shows a highly pleiotropic phenotype, which overlaps with the phenotypes of mutants defective in miRNA accumulation. Although it has been proposed that SERRATE (SE) functions specifically in miRNAmediated repression of the leaf polarity genes PHABULOSA and PHAVOLUTA, microarray analysis shows upregulation of many genes known to be the targets of miRNAs in se-1. We show that SE is a general regulator of miRNA levels affecting the processing of primary miRNA to miRNA.

SummaryPhosphatidylinositol 3-phosphate (PI(3)P), the product of class III PI3K VPS34, recruits specific autophagic effectors, like WIPI2, during the initial steps of autophagosome biogenesis and thereby regulates canonical autophagy. However, mammalian cells can produce autophagosomes through enigmatic noncanonical VPS34-independent pathways. Here we show that PI(5)P can regulate autophagy via PI(3)P effectors and thereby identify a mechanistic explanation for forms of noncanonical autophagy. PI(5)P synthesis by the phosphatidylinositol 5-kinase PIKfyve was required for autophagosome biogenesis, and it increased levels of PI(5)P, stimulated autophagy, and reduced the levels of autophagic substrates. Inactivation of VPS34 impaired recruitment of WIPI2 and DFCP1 to autophagic precursors, reduced ATG5-ATG12 conjugation, and compromised autophagosome formation. However, these phenotypes were rescued by PI(5)P in VPS34-inactivated cells. These findings provide a mechanistic framework for alternative VPS34-independent autophagy-initiating pathways, like glucose starvation, and unravel a cytoplasmic function for PI(5)P, which previously has been linked predominantly to nuclear roles.

Mammals have genes coding for three PI5P4Ks (PtdIns5P 4-kinases), and these have different cellular localizations, tissue distributions and lipid kinase activities. We describe in the present paper a detailed molecular exploration of human PI5P4Ks α, β and γ, as well as their fly and worm homologues, to understand how and why these differences came to be. The intrinsic ATPase activities of the three isoforms are very similar, and we show that differences in their G-loop regions can account for much of their wide differences in lipid kinase activity. We have also undertaken an extensive in silico evolutionary study of the PI5P4K family, and show experimentally that the single PI5P4K homologues from Caenorhabditis elegans and Drosophila melanogaster are as widely different in activity as the most divergent mammalian isoforms. Finally we show that the close association of PI5P4Ks α and γ is a true heterodimerization, and not a higher oligomer association of homodimers. We reveal that structural modelling is consistent with this and with the apparently random heterodimerization that we had earlier observed between PI5P4Kα and PI5P4Kβ [Wang, Bond, Letcher, Richardson, Lilley, Irvine and Clarke (2010), Biochem. J. 430, 215–221]. Overall the molecular diversity of mammalian PI5P4Ks explains much of their properties and behaviour, but their physiological functionality remains elusive.

During development, Drosophila larvae undergo a dramatic increase in body mass wherein nutritional and developmental cues are transduced into growth through the activity of complex signaling pathways. Class I phosphoinositide 3-kinases have an established role in this process. In this study we identify Drosophila phosphatidylinositol 5-phosphate 4-kinase (dPIP4K) as a phosphoinositide kinase that regulates growth during larval development. Loss-of-function mutants in dPIP4K show reduced body weight and prolonged larval development, whereas overexpression of dPIP4K results both in an increase in body weight and shortening of larval development. The growth defect associated with dPIP4K loss of function is accompanied by a reduction in the average cell size of larval endoreplicative tissues. Our findings reveal that these phenotypes are underpinned by changes in the signaling input into the target of rapamycin (TOR) signaling complex and changes in the activity of its direct downstream target p70 S6 kinase. Together, these results define dPIP4K activity as a regulator of cell growth and TOR signaling during larval development.