Skip to main content
PMC home page
The Plant Cell logoLink to The Plant Cell
. 1992 Dec;4(12):1507–1518. doi: 10.1105/tpc.4.12.1507

COP9: a new genetic locus involved in light-regulated development and gene expression in arabidopsis.

N Wei 1, X W Deng 1
PMCID: PMC160237  PMID: 1467650

Abstract

We report here the identification and characterization of a new Arabidopsis light-regulatory locus, COP9, mutation that leads to a constitutive photomorphogenic phenotype. Dark-grown cop9 seedlings exhibit many morphological characteristics of light-grown seedlings, including short hypocotyls and open and enlarged cotyledons with cell-type and chloroplast differentiation. Furthermore, the cop9 mutation leads to high-level expression of light-inducible genes in the absence of light, probably by altering the promoter activities of these genes. These properties imply that the mutation in the COP9 locus uncouples the light/dark signals from morphogenesis and light-regulated gene expression. In addition, light-grown cop9 mutants are severely dwarfed and are unable to reach maturation and flowering. This adult-lethal phenotype indicates that the COP9 locus also plays a critical role for normal development of the light-grown plant. Similar to cop1 mutants, but not det1, the cop9 mutants show (1) no effect on the phytochrome control of seed germination and (2) deficiency in the dark-adaptive change of expression of light-regulated genes. Our results suggest that the cop9 and cop1 mutations result in the same range of phenotypes and therefore COP9 and COP1 loci may encode closely related components in the same regulatory pathway.

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (3.6 MB).

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Bruce W. B., Deng X. W., Quail P. H. A negatively acting DNA sequence element mediates phytochrome-directed repression of phyA gene transcription. EMBO J. 1991 Oct;10(10):3015–3024. doi: 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1991.tb07852.x. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Chory J., Nagpal P., Peto C. A. Phenotypic and Genetic Analysis of det2, a New Mutant That Affects Light-Regulated Seedling Development in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell. 1991 May;3(5):445–459. doi: 10.1105/tpc.3.5.445. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Chory J., Peto C. A., Ashbaugh M., Saganich R., Pratt L., Ausubel F. Different Roles for Phytochrome in Etiolated and Green Plants Deduced from Characterization of Arabidopsis thaliana Mutants. Plant Cell. 1989 Sep;1(9):867–880. doi: 10.1105/tpc.1.9.867. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Chory J., Peto C., Feinbaum R., Pratt L., Ausubel F. Arabidopsis thaliana mutant that develops as a light-grown plant in the absence of light. Cell. 1989 Sep 8;58(5):991–999. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(89)90950-1. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Deng X. W., Caspar T., Quail P. H. cop1: a regulatory locus involved in light-controlled development and gene expression in Arabidopsis. Genes Dev. 1991 Jul;5(7):1172–1182. doi: 10.1101/gad.5.7.1172. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Deng X. W., Gruissem W. Control of plastid gene expression during development: the limited role of transcriptional regulation. Cell. 1987 May 8;49(3):379–387. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(87)90290-x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Deng X. W., Matsui M., Wei N., Wagner D., Chu A. M., Feldmann K. A., Quail P. H. COP1, an Arabidopsis regulatory gene, encodes a protein with both a zinc-binding motif and a G beta homologous domain. Cell. 1992 Nov 27;71(5):791–801. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(92)90555-q. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Dev BN. Comment on "Quantitative structural determination of metallic film growth on a semiconductor crystal: ( sqrt 3 x sqrt 3 )R30 degrees -->(1 x 1) Pb on Ge(111)". Phys Rev Lett. 1990 Mar 5;64(10):1182–1182. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.64.1182. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Donald R. G., Cashmore A. R. Mutation of either G box or I box sequences profoundly affects expression from the Arabidopsis rbcS-1A promoter. EMBO J. 1990 Jun;9(6):1717–1726. doi: 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1990.tb08295.x. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Feinbaum R. L., Ausubel F. M. Transcriptional regulation of the Arabidopsis thaliana chalcone synthase gene. Mol Cell Biol. 1988 May;8(5):1985–1992. doi: 10.1128/mcb.8.5.1985. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Frankel A. D., Mattaj I. W., Rio D. C. RNA-protein interactions. Cell. 1991 Dec 20;67(6):1041–1046. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(91)90282-4. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Gilmartin P. M., Sarokin L., Memelink J., Chua N. H. Molecular light switches for plant genes. Plant Cell. 1990 May;2(5):369–378. doi: 10.1105/tpc.2.5.369. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Ha S. B., An G. Identification of upstream regulatory elements involved in the developmental expression of the Arabidopsis thaliana cab1 gene. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1988 Nov;85(21):8017–8021. doi: 10.1073/pnas.85.21.8017. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Leutwiler L. S., Meyerowitz E. M., Tobin E. M. Structure and expression of three light-harvesting chlorophyll a/b-binding protein genes in Arabidopsis thaliana. Nucleic Acids Res. 1986 May 27;14(10):4051–4064. doi: 10.1093/nar/14.10.4051. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Liscum E., Hangarter R. P. Arabidopsis Mutants Lacking Blue Light-Dependent Inhibition of Hypocotyl Elongation. Plant Cell. 1991 Jul;3(7):685–694. doi: 10.1105/tpc.3.7.685. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Okada K., Shimura Y. Aspects of recent developments in mutational studies of plant signaling pathways. Cell. 1992 Aug 7;70(3):369–372. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(92)90159-a. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Sharrock R. A., Quail P. H. Novel phytochrome sequences in Arabidopsis thaliana: structure, evolution, and differential expression of a plant regulatory photoreceptor family. Genes Dev. 1989 Nov;3(11):1745–1757. doi: 10.1101/gad.3.11.1745. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. Simon M. I., Strathmann M. P., Gautam N. Diversity of G proteins in signal transduction. Science. 1991 May 10;252(5007):802–808. doi: 10.1126/science.1902986. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  19. Somers D. E., Caspar T., Quail P. H. Isolation and Characterization of a Ferredoxin Gene from Arabidopsis thaliana. Plant Physiol. 1990 Jun;93(2):572–577. doi: 10.1104/pp.93.2.572. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  20. Somers D. E., Sharrock R. A., Tepperman J. M., Quail P. H. The hy3 Long Hypocotyl Mutant of Arabidopsis Is Deficient in Phytochrome B. Plant Cell. 1991 Dec;3(12):1263–1274. doi: 10.1105/tpc.3.12.1263. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  21. Valvekens D., Van Montagu M., Van Lijsebettens M. Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation of Arabidopsis thaliana root explants by using kanamycin selection. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1988 Aug;85(15):5536–5540. doi: 10.1073/pnas.85.15.5536. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  22. Zurawski G., Bohnert H. J., Whitfeld P. R., Bottomley W. Nucleotide sequence of the gene for the M(r) 32,000 thylakoid membrane protein from Spinacia oleracea and Nicotiana debneyi predicts a totally conserved primary translation product of M(r) 38,950. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1982 Dec;79(24):7699–7703. doi: 10.1073/pnas.79.24.7699. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from The Plant Cell are provided here courtesy of Oxford University Press

RESOURCES