Chlorophyll (chl) is essential for light capture and is the starting point that provides the energy for photosynthesis and thus plant growth. Obviously, for this reason, retention of the green chlorophyll pigment is considered a desirable crop trait. However, the presence of chlorophyll in mature seeds can be an undesirable trait that can affect seed maturation, seed oil quality, and meal quality. Occurrence of mature green seeds in oil crops such as canola and soybean due to unfavorable weather conditions during seed maturity is known to cause severe losses in revenue. One recently identified candidate that controls the chlorophyll degradation machinery is the stay-green gene, SGR1 that was mapped to Mendel's I locus responsible for cotyledon color (yellow versus green) in peas. A defect in SGR1 leads to leaf stay-green phenotypes in Arabidopsis and rice, but the role of SGR1 in seed degreening and the signaling machinery that converges on SGR1 have remained elusive. To decipher the gene regulatory network that controls degreening in Arabidopsis, we have used an embryo staygreen mutant to demonstrate that embryo degreening is achieved by the SGR family and that this whole process is regulated by the phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA) through ABSCISIC ACID INSEN-SITIVE 3 (ABI3); a B3 domain transcription factor that has a highly conserved and essential role in seed maturation, conferring desiccation tolerance. Misexpression of ABI3 was sufficient to rescue cold-induced green seed phenotype in Arabidopsis. This finding reveals a mechanistic role for ABI3 during seed degreening and thus targeting of this pathway could provide a solution to the green seed problem in various oil-seed crops.freezing tolerance | nondormant T he success of angiosperms impinges on their ability to desiccate and protect their embryos in a dormant state until favorable conditions are perceived. In many angiosperms and oilseed plants such as Arabidopsis and canola, this desiccation process during seed maturation is intricately coupled to loss of chlorophyll (chl) from photosynthetically active embryos (1). During the embryo maturation phase, as the embryos begin to lose their chlorophyll, they concomitantly initiate the process of acquisition of desiccation tolerance and dormancy, thereby producing mature, brown (degreened) and dormant seeds. The persistence of chlorophyll in mature seeds has negative impacts on seed storability in many commercial plant species such as canola, cabbage, carrot, geranium, and soybean (2-4). Apart from contributing to reduced storability, prevalence of green seeds in mature oil seeds (canola and soybean) is also associated with reduced shelf life of oil and production of unfavorable odors and flavors. Particularly, in canola, which is one of the major global cash crops, the frost-induced green seed problem has been estimated to result in an annual loss of $150 million in revenue in North America alone (5, 6).During seed development, abscisic acid (ABA) is known to control mid to late stages of embryo maturation...

Protein farnesylation is a post-translational modification involving the addition of a 15-carbon farnesyl isoprenoid to the carboxy terminus of select proteins(1-3). Although the roles of this lipid modification are clear in both fungal and animal signalling, many of the mechanistic functions of farnesylation in plant signalling are still unknown. Here, we show that CYP85A2, the cytochrome P450 enzyme that performs the last step in brassinosteroid biosynthesis (conversion of castasterone to brassinolide)(4), must be farnesylated to function in Arabidopsis. Loss of either CYP85A2 or CYP85A2 farnesylation results in reduced brassinolide accumulation and increased plant responsiveness to the hormone abscisic acid (ABA) and overall drought tolerance, explaining previous observations(5). This result not only directly links farnesylation to brassinosteroid biosynthesis but also suggests new strategies to maintain crop yield under challenging climatic conditions.

When plants encounter nutrient-limiting conditions in the soil, the root architecture is redesigned to generate numerous lateral roots (LRs) that increase the surface area of roots, promoting efficient uptake of these deficient nutrients. Of the many essential nutrients, reduced availability of inorganic phosphate has a major impact on plant growth because of the requirement of inorganic phosphate for synthesis of organic molecules, such as nucleic acids, ATP, and phospholipids, that function in various crucial metabolic activities. In our screens to identify a potential role for the S-domain receptor kinase1-6 and its interacting downstream signaling partner, the Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) plant U box/armadillo repeat-containing E3 ligase9 (AtPUB9), we identified a role for this module in regulating LR development under phosphate-starved conditions. Our results show that Arabidopsis double mutant plants lacking AtPUB9 and Arabidopsis Receptor Kinase2 (AtARK2; ark2-1/pub9-1) display severely reduced LRs when grown under phosphate-starved conditions. Under these starvation conditions, these plants accumulated very low to no auxin in their primary root and LR tips as observed through expression of the auxin reporter DR5::uidA transgene. Exogenous auxin was sufficient to rescue the LR developmental defects in the ark2-1/pub9-1 lines, indicating a requirement of auxin accumulation for this process. Our subcellular localization studies with tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) suspension-cultured cells indicate that interaction between ARK2 and AtPUB9 results in accumulation of AtPUB9 in the autophagosomes. Inhibition of autophagy in wild-type plants resulted in reduction of LR development and auxin accumulation under phosphate-starved conditions, suggesting a role for autophagy in regulating LR development. Thus, our study has uncovered a previously unknown signaling module (ARK2-PUB9) that is required for auxin-mediated LR development under phosphate-starved conditions.

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