Research

    Plants, as sessile organisms, need to constantly adjust their intrinsic programs of growth and development to the environmental conditions. This adaptation often involves changes in the developmentally predefined patterns of activity of one or more phytohormones. In turn, these hormonal fluctuations lead to alterations at the gene expression level and to the concurrent changes of the cellular activities. In general, the hormone-mediated regulation of plant development is achieved, at least in part, by modulating the transcriptional activity of hundreds of genes. The study of these transcriptional regulatory networks not only provides a conceptual framework to understand the fundamental biology behind these hormone-mediated processes, but also the molecular tools needed to accelerate the progress of modern agriculture. Although often overlooked, understanding of the translational regulatory networks behind complex biological processes has the potential to empower similar advances in both basic and applied plant biology arenas. By taking advantage of the recently developed ribosome footprinting technology, genome-wide changes in translation activity in response to ethylene were quantified at codon resolution, and new translational regulatory elements have been identified in Arabidopsis. Importantly, the detailed characterization of one of the novel regulatory elements indicates that this regulation of translation is not miRNA dependent and that the element identified is also responsive to the plant hormone auxin, implicating this element in the interaction between ethylene and auxin. These findings not only confirm the basic biological importance of translational regulation and its potential as a signal integration mechanism but also open new avenues for identifying, characterizing and utilizing additional regulatory modules of gene expression in plant species of economic importance. Towards that general goal, a plant-optimized ribosome footprinting methodology is being deployed to examine the translation landscape of two plant species, tomato, and Arabidopsis, in response to two plant hormones, ethylene and auxin. A time-course experiment is maximizing the detection sensitivity and diversity (early vs. late activation) of translational regulatory elements. The large amount and dynamic nature of the generated data will be also utilized to generate hierarchical transcriptional and translational interaction network models for the two hormones and to explore the possible use of these diverse types of information to identify key regulatory nodes.  Finally, the comparison between two plant species is providing critical information on the conservation of the regulatory elements identified and, thus, informs research on future practical applications.

 Both plants and animals, like humans, use a set of hormones to control growth and development.  These hormones are small chemicals produced by the plants or animals in extremely minute amounts, but capable of triggering dramatic changes in the organism. All multicellular organisms can produce and carefully distribute these growth regulators to ensure proper development and defense against harmful environmental conditions or infections. In plants, there are nine classes of plant-produced chemical hormones that govern plant growth. These control a wide range of developmental processes, from seed germination to fruit ripening.  Despite the critical role of plant hormones, they are somewhat difficult to study, in part because it is challenging to know specifically when and where the hormones are made and act. One of the ways the activity of the hormones can be visualized is with the help of the so-called fluorescent reporter genes that make parts of the plants glow under UV light if the hormone is active in that part of the plant. We are producing a set of synthetic reporter genes that will make it possible to visualize the activity of multiple hormones at once, all in a single plant. Importantly, these reporters will be useful for the analysis of hormones in many plant species, including crop and ornamental plants and even trees.