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NIGT1 represses plant growth and mitigates phosphate starvation signaling to balance the growth response tradeoff in rice.

Yuxin ZhangQianqian ZhangMeina GuoXueqing WangTianjie LiQingyu WuLihui LiKeke YiWenyuan Ruan
Published in: Journal of integrative plant biology (2023)
Inorganic phosphate (Pi) availability is an important factor that affects the growth and yield of crops, thus an appropriate and effective response to Pi-fluctuation is critical. However, how crops orchestrate Pi-signaling and growth under Pi-starvation conditions to optimize the growth defense tradeoff remains unclear. Here we show that a Pi-starvation induced transcription factor NIGT1 (NITRATE-INDUCIBLE GARP-TYPE TRANSCRIPTIONAL REPRESSOR 1) controls plant growth and prevents a hyperresponse to Pi-starvation by directly repressing the expression of growth-related and Pi-signaling genes to achieve a balance between growth and response under a varying Pi environment. NIGT1 directly binds to the promoters of Pi-starvation signaling marker genes, like IPS1, miR827 and SPX2, under Pi-deficient conditions to mitigate the Pi-starvation responsive (PSR). It also directly represses the expression of vacuolar Pi efflux transporter genes VPE1/2 to regulate plant Pi-homeostasis. We further demonstrate that NIGT1 constrains shoot growth by repressing the expression of growth-related regulatory genes, including brassinolide signal transduction master regulator BZR1, cell division regulator CYCB1;1, and DNA replication regulator PSF3. Our findings reveal the function of NIGT1 in orchestrating plant growth and Pi-starvation signaling, and also provide evidence that NIGT1 acts as a safeguard to avoid hyperresponse during Pi-starvation stress in rice. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
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