Abstract
Plants are exposed to various environmental stimuli, including abiotic and biotic stresses, during their life cycle. In Arabidopsis thaliana, the Universal Stress Protein (AtUSP) acts as a protein chaperone and RNA chaperone to protect plants from heat shock and cold shock, respectively. This study aimed to explore the role of AtUSP in plant growth and development. We conducted morphological analyses of wild-type (WT; Col-0), AtUSP overexpression (AtUSPOE), and atusp knockout mutant plants during their vegetative growth, and measured the total leaf number, leaf size, and root length. Compared with the WT, AtUSPOE plants displayed enhanced growth, whereas atusp plants displayed reduced growth of all examined organs. To investigate whether these growth phenotypes were caused by changes in cell expansion and proliferation, we analyzed the mature leaves of all genotypes at the cellular level. The enlarged leaves of AtUSPOE plants showed an increase in cell size, but not in cell number, indicating that AtUSP promotes cell expansion. Moreover, expression analysis of cell growth-related genes revealed that AtUSP is involved in cell expansion rather than cell proliferation. These findings suggest that AtUSP acts as a positive regulator of cell expansion, and provide novel insights into its role in plant growth and development.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF; grant numbers: 2021R1A2C1093478 and 2021R1A2C1006572) funded by the Korean government (MSIT), and by the Basic Science Research Program through the NRF (Grant number: 2020R1A6A1A03047729) funded by the Ministry of Education.
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ESL, KATP, and SYL designed the research. KATP, ESL, SEJ, SDW, and SBB performed the experiments and analyzed the data. KATP, ESL, GTK, and SYL wrote the manuscript. JHP, HBC, KRK and SKP participated in valuable discussions. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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12374_2022_9348_MOESM1_ESM.tif
Supplementary file1 (TIF 4143 KB) Expression of AtUSP in various tissues of Arabidopsis plants at different developmental stages. A Graphical display of AtUSP expression in Arabidopsis tissues, as predicted using the Arabidopsis eFP Browser. B AtUSP mRNA levels in various tissues of Arabidopsis plants. TUB2 was used as a control
12374_2022_9348_MOESM2_ESM.tif
Supplementary file2 (TIF 1185 KB) AtUSP is not involved in cell proliferation. Expression levels of cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) and cyclin (CYC) genes are shown. Values represent mean ± SEM (n = 3 biologically independent samples). Different lowercase letters indicate statistically significant differences (p < 0.05; Tukey test)
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Lee, E.S., Phan, K.A.T., Jun, S.E. et al. Universal Stress Protein (USP) Enhances Plant Growth and Development by Promoting Cell Expansion. J. Plant Biol. 65, 231–239 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12374-022-09348-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12374-022-09348-3