MERISTEM-DEFECTIVE regulates the balance between stemness and differentiation in the root meristem through RNA splicing control

Thompson, H.L.; Shen, W.; Matus, R.; Kakkar, M.; Jones, C.; Dolan, D.; Grellscheid, S.; Yang, X.; Zhang, N.; Mozaffari-Jovin, S.; Chen, C.; Zhang, X.; Topping, J.F.; Lindsey, K.

doi:10.1242/dev.201476

MERISTEM-DEFECTIVE regulates the balance between stemness and differentiation in the root meristem through RNA splicing control

Thompson, H.L.; Shen, W.; Matus, R.; Kakkar, M.; Jones, C.; Dolan, D.; Grellscheid, S.; Yang, X.; Zhang, N.; Mozaffari-Jovin, S.; Chen, C.; Zhang, X.; Topping, J.F.; Lindsey, K.

Authors

Dr Helen Thompson helen.l.thompson@durham.ac.uk
Assistant Professor

W. Shen

R. Matus

M. Kakkar

C. Jones

Dr David Dolan d.w.p.dolan@durham.ac.uk
Academic Visitor

Professor Sushma Grellscheid s.n.grellscheid@durham.ac.uk
Professor

X. Yang

N. Zhang

S. Mozaffari-Jovin

C. Chen

X. Zhang

Dr Jennifer Topping j.f.topping@durham.ac.uk
Associate Professor

Professor Keith Lindsey keith.lindsey@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Abstract

Plants respond to environmental stresses through controlled stem cell maintenance and meristem activity. One level of gene regulation is RNA alternative splicing. However, the mechanistic link between stress, meristem function and RNA splicing is poorly understood. The MERISTEM-DEFECTIVE (MDF) Arabidopsis gene encodes an SR-related family protein, required for meristem function and leaf vascularization, and is the likely orthologue of the human SART1 and yeast Snu66 splicing factors. MDF is required for the correct splicing and expression of key transcripts associated with root meristem function. We identified RSZ33 and ACC1, both known to regulate cell patterning, as splicing targets required for MDF function in the meristem. MDF expression is modulated by osmotic and cold stress, associated with differential splicing and specific isoform accumulation and shuttling between nucleus and cytosol, and acts in part via a splicing target SR34. We propose a model in which MDF controls splicing in the root meristem to promote stemness and to repress stress response, cell differentiation and cell death pathways.

Citation

Thompson, H., Shen, W., Matus, R., Kakkar, M., Jones, C., Dolan, D., …Lindsey, K. (2023). MERISTEM-DEFECTIVE regulates the balance between stemness and differentiation in the root meristem through RNA splicing control. Development, 150(7), Article dev201476. https://doi.org/10.1242/dev.201476

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Mar 13, 2023
Online Publication Date	Apr 5, 2023
Publication Date	2023-04
Deposit Date	Mar 14, 2023
Publicly Available Date	Apr 11, 2023
Journal	Development
Print ISSN	0950-1991
Electronic ISSN	1477-9129
Publisher	The Company of Biologists
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	150
Issue	7
Article Number	dev201476
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1242/dev.201476

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© 2023. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed.