Allosteric deactivation of PIFs and EIN3 by microproteins in light control of plant development
Qingqing Wu, Kunyan Kuang, Mohan Lyu, Yan Zhao, Yue Li, Jing Li, Ying Pan, Hui Shi, Shangwei Zhong
Abstract
Significance How plants respond and adjust their growth to cope with environmental changes is a long-standing question in biology. By studying the initial dark-to-light transition, we reveal that a microprotein-imposed suppression of protein activity is adopted by plants to achieve rapid switch from skotomorphogenic to photomorphogenic programs. Microproteins are essential bioactive regulators in animals. A large number of microproteins are predicted in plants, but very few of them are functionally characterized. We identified two microproteins that are tissue-specifically stimulated by light and directly disrupt the oligomerization of key transcription factors in light signaling. This microprotein-directed allosteric deactivation can be utilized to develop versatile tools for posttranslational regulation of target proteins in molecular breeding.