CONSTANS alters the circadian clock in Arabidopsis thaliana

Plants are sessile organisms that have acquired highly plastic developmental strategies to adapt to the environment.Among these processes,the floral transition is essential to ensure reproductive success and is finelyregulated by several internal andexternal genetic networks.The photoperiodic pathway,which controls plant response to day length,is one of the most important pathways controlling flowering.In Arabidopsis photoperiodic flowering,CONSTANS(CO)is the central gene activating the expression of the florigen FLOWERING LOCUS T(FT)in the leaves at the end of a long day.The circadian clock strongly regulates Co expression.However,to date,no evidence has been reported regarding a feedbackloop from the photoperiod pathway back to the circadian clock.Using transcriptional networks,we have identified relevant network motifs regulating the interplay between the circadian clock and the photoperiod pathway.Gene expression,chromatin immunoprecipitation experiments,and phenotypic analysis allowed us to elucidate the role of Co over the circadian clock.Plants with altered cO expression showed a different internal clock period,measured by daily leaf rhythmic movements.We showed that co upregulates the expression of key genes related to the circadian clock,such as CCA1,LHY,PRR5,and Gl,at the end of a long day by bindingto specific sites on their promoters.Moreover,a high numberof PRR5-repressed target genes are upregulated by CO,and this could explain the phase transition promoted by CO.The CO-PRR5 complex interacts with the bZiP transcriptionfactor HY5andhelps to localize the complex in the promoters of clock genes.Taken together,our results indicate that there may be a feedback loop in which co communicates back to the circadian clock,providing seasonal information to the circadian system.

Regulation of floral senescence in Arabidopsis by coordinated action of CONSTANS and jasmonate signaling

In Arabidopsis,photoperiodic flowering is controlled by the regulatory hub gene CONSTANS(CO),whereas floral organ senescence is regulated by the jasmonates(JAs).Because these processes are chronologically ordered,it remains unknown whether there are common regulators of both processes.In this study,we discovered that CO protein accumulates in Arabidopsis flowers after floral induction,and it displays a diurnal pattern in floral organs different from that in the leaves.We observed that altered CO expression could affect flower senescence and abscission by interfering with JA response,as shown by petal-specific transcriptomic analysis as well as CO overexpression in JA synthesis and signaling mutants.We found that CO has a ZIM(ZINC-FINGER INFLORESCENCE MERISTEM)like domain that mediates its interaction with the JA response repressor JAZ3(jasmonate ZIM-domain 3).Their interaction inhibits the repressor activity of JAZ3,resulting in activation of downstream transcription factors involved in promoting flower senescence.Furthermore,we showed that CO,JAZ3,and the E3 ubiquitin ligase COI1(Coronatine Insensitive 1)could form a protein complex in planta,which promotes the degradation of both CO and JAZ3 in the presence of JAs.Taken together,our results indicate that CO,a key regulator of photoperiodic flowering,is also involved in promoting flower senescence and abscission by augmenting JA signaling and response.We propose that coordinated recruitment of photoperiodic and JA signaling pathways could be an efficient way for plants to chronologically order floral processes and ensure the success of offspring production.